Photo courtesy of Minnesota West: Dr. Anita Gaul, history instructor at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, wears a time-specific costume for one of her teaching lessons. Gaul was nominated by the school for the Minnesota State Board of Trustees Educator of the Year Award.

With an extreme passion for storytelling and making history come alive through her teaching, Minnesota West Community and Technical College’s Dr. Anita Gaul has been nominated by the school for the Minnesota State Board of Trustees Educator of the Year Award. Gaul is a history instructor who has made it her mission over her career to enrich her students, and the community, with engaging experiences that bring historical periods and moments to life.

“To be honest, I was grateful. Grateful that my hard work and my passion for history has been recognized … As I tell my students, I bring my A-game every day to class,” Gaul said regarding her nomination. “It’s nice to know that people see you, the work you’re doing and want to commend you for it … I just feel very fortunate that every day I get to read about, learn about, teach about, think about, talk about and write about history. That’s really great, I get to do what I love.”

Gaul is originally from Murray County near Chandler, and started at Minnesota West in 2018 after getting her teaching career started as an adjunct faculty member at Southwest Minnesota State University in 2009 where she stayed for nine years.

The love for history sparked at an early age for Gaul, and switching career trajectories during her undergraduate studies affirmed the path she was bound to take.

“My dad was always reading the newspaper or history books, and I too, grew up loving history and reading a lot of it,” Gaul said. “When I went off to college, I actually majored in German and Political Science, because I was intending to go into the US Foreign Service. I wanted to be a diplomat, or service officer, or something like that. I was actually studying abroad in Germany at an intensive German language school one semester of my junior year of college, and it was there that I realized, I’m like, ‘I’m in the wrong career path. I love history.’

Gaul noted that studying in Germany opened her eyes to a history teaching profession with visiting the historic sites abroad.

“I realized that I also had a gift for explaining history to other people,” Gaul said. “In high school, when other kids in my class would struggle … They would come to me and say, ‘Anita, can you explain this to me?’ and I (would) help explain history to them.”

With switching career paths later in her college studies, Gaul went to school for an additional year to complete her education requirements. She completed her undergrad at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan before pursuing a graduate degree.

“In the process of being in those (undergrad) history classes, one of my history professors said to me, ‘You’re smart, you should consider going on to grad school,'” Gaul said. “I remember that absolutely blew me away, because I was a farm kid from Murray County. Farm kids didn’t go to grad school, I did not know of anyone who went to graduate school to be a professor. That just seemed so out of reach for me … I dismissed it. I was like, ‘I can’t do that.’ Then, as I went along, I realized that I did want to do that, and I was willing to work hard and at least try it.

That determination and discipline carried Gaul through the University of Iowa to obtain a PhD degree, opening up the opportunity for her to teach in higher education.

Gaul teaches a range of courses covering different sectors of history like Western Civilization, World History, U.S. History and Minnesota History, and uses a creative teaching style by often dressing in time-specific costumes, bringing in authentic foods, playing historical music or integrating technology like virtual reality to make the student-learning experience memorable.

“The one thing I do not want history to be for my students is one damn fact after another,” Gaul said regarding her teaching approach. “It’s not memorizing a whole bunch of dates and a bunch of New Deal program acronyms.”

“History, if you look at even just the word ‘History,’ most of that word is ‘Story.’ So, history for me, is telling the stories of people, real people, and what they experience,” Gaul added. “Also, knowing that history is story, it’s music, it’s art, it’s poetry, it’s food and it’s fashion, that’s all history. My teaching philosophy is to make history come alive, and I do that through story.”

Gaul has brought her passion and knowledge outside of the classroom, who strives to continue sharing history around the community.

“I give historical presentations and talks all over southwest Minnesota. If you name a town, I’ve probably been in that town and given a history talk,” Gaul said. “I do that, because I think it’s really important for me to share what I learned and what I’ve learned in my research. What good is it to do all this research and not share it with anyone?”

Gaul also had the opportunity to be a part of Minnesota history, who received the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Medallion Award last year by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, which is the highest honor a Secretary of State can give.

“That was a recognition I received because I was the Vice Chair of the State Emblems Redesign Commission, which was charged by the Minnesota Legislature to redesign the state flag and seal. I was in a leadership position in that effort,” Gaul said. “I got a seat at the table of making history … It was wonderful to be part of history.”

Gaul continues to stay active around campus, and is partaking in an upcoming cross-curriculum project with MNWest’s theater department and theater instructor Eric Parrish on their upcoming Spring production, “Silent Sky.”

“The play is about a forgotten female astronomer named Henrietta Leavitt, who made amazing discoveries about the stars and about our universe when she was working at Harvard University, but she never got credit. Her and a number of other women were making all these discoveries, but they got forgotten. They got written out of history. The play, Silent Sky, is about Henrietta Leavitt and these forgotten female astronomers and their contribution to science and astronomy,” Gaul said, noting her excitement. “It was his (Parrish’s) idea, and he is spearheading this cross-curricular project that’s bringing a number of different instructors that teach many different subjects here at Minnesota West … We have art instructors, English instructors, physics instructors, match instructors, and all of us, we will be incorporating this woman, her discoveries and her story into our curriculum.”

As another new school year has gotten underway, Gaul pledged her gratitude to Minnesota West and continues to live her dream job.

“I feel very fortunate to be able to have this job,” Gaul said. “It’s been great. I feel like sometimes I won the lottery. I can do what I am trained to do, what I love to do, and I actually have a job where I can do that.”

The final Minnesota State Board award recipients will be announced in February.

When it comes down to it, Gaul’s favorite part of teaching is being able to share with her students the stories that have come before us.

“If I had to boil it all down, I get to tell stories every day. I think if I lived in a different time and place in history, I would be the village storyteller. I would be the old woman that people would come to, ‘Anita, can you tell me a story?’ And, I would be the person teaching or telling the story around the fire at night,” Gaul said, laughing. “In the time and place that I live, I sort of view myself as well, ‘This is what a village storyteller does in the modern world.’ I talk about, teach about, read about, learn about, write about stories every day.”