Ever since 1989, Mr. Don Carroll has been a beloved Saint Francis English and social studies teacher. He’s taught American Literature (both regular and honors) to sophomores, British Literature to juniors, World Literature and Film as Literature to seniors, AP US Government to seniors, journalism, creative writing, and a class that Saint Francis no longer offers, expository writing. Towards the beginning of his career, he coached junior varsity water polo, and he currently moderates the Film Club, tutors for Holy Cross Achievers, and is one of the co-moderators of The Lancer, a job he’s held for several decades.
The Lancer: From a student perspective, what was your experience like in high school and university?
Mr. Don Carroll: I didn’t enjoy high school very much.
TL: Let the record state he went to Bellarmine.
DC: Haha. I didn’t enjoy high school very much. I was a commuter kid, and I took the train. As a result, I was fairly distant from the community at Bellarmine. Most of my friends were public school kids by me, so I felt disconnected from Bellarmine. I didn’t participate much until my senior year and I understood by the time I was a senior that my not being happy in high school was my issue. When I went to college, I decided that I would join a bunch of things and throw myself into the community of whatever college I went to so that I would have a better experience. I’m not badmouthing Bellarmine; I’m badmouthing my experience, which was my fault.
TL: Which colleges did you go to, and what did you study?
DC: I went to Northwestern my freshman year, and I was a physics major. I joined a couple things, but the main thing was, they had a humor magazine, and I joined the humor magazine as a writer and editor. For a variety of reasons, I transferred sophomore year to UC Santa Barbara. I also changed my major to math for one quarter. And then I realized, I really like math my freshman year, but sophomore year I had this class called Differential Equations, and I did not really understand what I was doing. Calculus seemed elegant to me, but I was lost. I had no idea what I was doing. I did okay, but not well enough to go to graduate school, and I wanted to go to graduate school. At the same time, I was taking classes for fun in political science (poli-sci) and history. So I changed to poli-sci as a major so that I could major in something I enjoyed and also was doing better in. I was at Santa Barbara for two years, and then I went overseas to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland for a year. There, I studied poli-sci and sociology. I also studied a lot of English when I was at Santa Barbara. I got into that because I had a professor who taught English and taught it through a sociohistorical approach to literature, which allowed for politics and a political understanding of texts. And I found that fascinating, so all these things came together, and I became interested in an interdisciplinary approach. I went to Duke for graduate school in philosophy and literature for two years, and I came and started teaching here for five years, and I went back to school one more time after that.
TL: Where did you go?
DC: Harvard. I thought I would get a PhD, so after teaching for five years, I left and went to Harvard. I was there for four years, but I did not finish my PhD. It was in American Studies, which is basically history, philosophy, literature, and American culture. I specialized in things like labor, history, political and social thought, and American literature. I was in the beginning stage of the dissertation when I left.
TL: What led you to become a teacher? What is something you always knew you wanted to do, or more of a gradual realization?
DC: I originally wanted to be a professor of astronomy. Carl Sagan was my hero, and he was at Cornell. As I moved away from that into poli-sci, I also became more political. I was political anyway from high school on, but became more political and realized I wanted to do something in that field. I realized that the change that had happened in my life was because of the teachers I had at Bellarmine, and I wanted to have that same impact on students.
TL: What makes Saint Francis special to you as an educator, and how do you think that reflects in students’ experiences?
DC: Saint Francis took a chance on me as an educator. I had no experience and was fresh at it when I’d come out of Duke. I’d graded kids’ essays at the college level, but I hadn’t actually taught a class. I got hired in August, so it was kind of an emergency situation, but they hired me and this other guy with no experience either, and we ended up working out. Here I am, thirty-some odd years later, a teacher, and he also taught for a long time here. He went to Oregon, and eventually became an administrator, so he’s still in education as well. I’ve always felt very loyal to Saint Francis because they took a chance on me when they didn’t need to. When I first applied to high schools, I applied to Bellarmine and Saint Ignatius (SI) because it was the Jesuit model that influenced me as a high schooler. It wasn’t like I disregarded Saint Francis, just that I was more familiar and comfortable with the Jesuit model. Bellarmine only offered me a part-time job, and SI didn’t want to talk to me at all. I said no to Bellarmine because I wanted to make money, and I couldn’t support myself on that. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, so I went back there and hung out in LA. In August, the job opened up here, and I heard about it and applied.
TL: What do you like to do outside of the classroom?
DC: I don’t know, a lot of a lot of outrigger canoe stuff on the open ocean. I love scaling walls of ice and ultra-marathons. If it’s less than fifty or sixty miles, I’m not interested. I also do some reading and writing, and I like listening to music. I like watching movies. I enjoy culture.
TL: What are some of your favorite books, movies, and music?
DC: I don’t have one single favorite in anything. Movies I love, the first two Godfather movies and Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink by the Cohen brothers. For books, I like some Graham Green like The Quiet American. I love Catch 22 and A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. I think those are all great books. I like good comic writing that nonetheless has some depth to it. For music, I’m fairly broad in my taste.
TL: Do you have a record player?
DC: No, years ago I got rid of it because my wife and I were moving around too much, and it was just too big with all the components and speakers. And now I got rid of all the records, so I think it would be too much of a commitment to go back. But I do like the idea of vinyl. I have a DVD player and lots of DVDs. I like to own my music and my movies. I don’t want to be renting anything on a monthly basis. I don’t want Spotify in my pocket every month. I want human-curated stuff, so I listen to the radio. I listen to college stations like KFJC or KZSU because there’s an actual human being on the other end, picking music for me to listen to. Sometimes I don’t like it, and sometimes I do, and that’s okay, but I don’t want an algorithm picking those things for me.
TL: Do you have any albums you’d recommend?
DC: I mean there’s some albums I love, but they’re like the books and movies. They’re just a reflection of my particular time and place and my socioeconomic level and my educational background and my gender and my nationality, so it’s just the stuff I like. So, having said that, I love Avalon by Roxy Music. I think it’s a great album. I love Murmur and Reckoning by R.E.M.
TL: Could you please explain your teaching philosophy and how you exemplify it in your classroom?
DC: My basic teaching philosophy is that if kids don’t walk out of the classroom crying, I haven’t done my job [maniacal laughter]. I think the world we live in has problems, and I think we are capable as a people of solving them, and I would like to be able to think that what happens in the classroom is both making students aware of these problems and also thinking of ways that they can be resolved. We have enormous power as human beings on this planet. You see that power resulting in all kinds of bad things, and it would be nice once in a while if we could use human consciousness for good ends. So for me, all teaching is politics.
TL: What is the most rewarding and most taxing part of your job?
DC: The most taxing part is the grading. The most rewarding part is the classroom time. Once a twice a week—easily, then sometimes more—I’ll be in a class, and a kid will say something that I’ve never thought of before, and I’m impressed by that thought. I’m still learning. One of the most rewarding bits is feeling that I am growing as a person because of my interactions with students.
TL: Do you have any advice for students who might be unsure of what they want to do in the future?
DC: No. I’m not sure what it means to be sure of what you’re gonna do in your future, especially at your age. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do. I ended up changing a lot of my plans, and that’s fine, even just the changing of majors. You never know what’s going to interest you until you get to college. I would like to think of college as a place to explore who you are and what you are going to be. College has gotten so expensive because the state no longer supports it in the way it used to, so it’s looked at as if it were only an investment, and that’s a shame. It should be more than an investment. Don’t worry about it. You may change, and you may change your career. I’ll probably go out, retire having the same career in one place. That doesn’t happen so much anymore, but there’s nothing wrong with that, either. I enjoy what I do enough, so I don’t feel the need to try something different.
TL: Now we have some lightning-round questions. Which current Saint Francis teachers have you taught?
DC: The oldest teacher I’ve taught here is Mr. Swank. I’ve taught a lot of my bosses—Mrs. Teekell, Ms. Sherrard (she was the department chair for a long time). I taught Mr. Pasion. I’ve taught a lot of teachers.
TL: If you could teach a class you haven’t taught, what would it be?
DC: I would love to have taught an anthropology class, or a sociology class. I like art history as well, but I don’t think I’m qualified enough to teach that.
TL: What’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?
DC: Look both ways before crossing the street.
TL: What is your favorite food?
DC: Oh, a very large burrito with, depending upon my mood, carnitas or carne asada. Yeah, those are both delicious. Chile verde is also nice.
TL: And finally, what are three words you would use to convince students to take any of your classes?
DC: Haha, this is not three words. But if you’re at all interested in politics, if you’re interested in the law, if you’re interested in the court system, I would take AP Gov. If you don’t mind reading, I’d take that class. I want to feed the interest of my kids, so it works best if they’re interested in literature, film, government, or philosophy (that’s another one I would love to teach).
TL: Thank you for the interview, and I hope you check out our article on thelancer.sfhs.com!
DC: Where?
TL: Our website.
DC: I don’t—Is there a website for this?
Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
