A new teacher in Clark’s history

Vardan Mikayelyan, one of the new teachers on campus, currently teaches U.S. History and Government and Economics.

Many of his students agree that his way of teaching and discussing history topics is important and informative when it comes to the world today. “My favorite thing about his class is that he lets us talk about different topics as a class,” said senior Max Kovach. “He’s a really good teacher and he’s open to student opinions, which is pretty rare.” Junior Anna Arutunian agrees. “My favorite thing about his class is the liberty he gives his students,” Arutunian said. “He really trusts us a lot and is pretty patient and lenient with all of us and our ideas.”

Mikayelyan knew he wanted to be a teacher since high school. He attended Glendale Community College, continuing on to UCLA where he attended their education program, which he said, readied him for teaching. After that, he worked at a private school for eight years.

“It was something that I knew I could do,” Mikayelyan said. “I wanted a job where I always use my mind and always in an environment where I am learning and growing. So I worked hard and went in that direction and so far it’s certainly going well.”

When he’s not teaching, Mikayelyan spends time with his family, exercising or expressing himself through music and visual art. 

“Currently, I’m more invested in painting because I like to see my artwork,” Mikayelyan said. “Visual arts come easy to me so I’m investing more time in that, but I plan to get back into music soon.”

Mikayelyan enjoys teaching history because of the lack of mathematical and scientific parameters.

“I like the adlib conversations we can have about a lot of interesting things that are going on in society and seeing how all of the social science aspects affect us on a daily basis,” he said.