Getting to Know...Steve Boyd

Getting to Know...Steve Boyd, Oklahoma Career Tech Center

I teach Automotive Technology at an Oklahoma Career Tech Center and also at a college as an evening adjunct instructor and I am doing what I enjoy. My interest in the field of education began back when I was in high school, in Tuttle, Ok. I wanted to be a teacher and wrestling coach even before I graduated high school. Now, 40 years later, I have had that opportunity for 20 years and I wish I had started 25 years earlier. Teaching High school students and post-secondary adults is all a part of my dream job.

From the time I started teaching, I have focused on becoming a better teacher. All I want to do is teach. I want to teach the teachers. I have developed an understanding that not every student is the same kind of learner and that I have to modify my teaching style to allow each student an equitable opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned. That was a hard lesson for a new teacher fresh out of industry.

I went to college straight out of High school in 1986. Started at Oklahoma Baptist University and it only took me 19 years to graduate. I was working at a skating rink when I met my wife, Kim. We got married in 1989 and a year later we had our first child. I realized I needed to put off college to go to work. I loved working on cars and that was the natural transition. I went to work as a porter at Bolen Oldsmobile in OKC. They closed the doors a year later and I moved to a Dodge dealer. I worked as a lube-tech and eventually worked my way into a team leader position through hard work and determination. I was 23.

I worked at a few Chrysler dealerships through the years absorbing everything about the industry I could, and became shop foreman at 29. After a few years, the teaching bug reappeared. It never really went away. I was an AYES Mentor at the dealership for our local high school students through the Careertech center. The instructor of the automotive program at that tech school recommended that I apply for a teaching position. I did, and somehow got hired on the first try. I felt this was destiny. My dream was to teach. My career was automotive. Could I blend those together and actually get paid? It was magic.

I started at Francis Tuttle Technology Center in the summer of 2004 and have been living this magical dream ever since. I love it. I have won teaching awards myself, coached multiple state and national champions in Sports, Speech and Automotive Skills Contests, but I have also dealt with tragedy and loss through the years. I have experienced the loss of multiple students to life tragedies over the years that have affected my journey as a teacher. I have also experienced the tragic loss of a daughter to a car accident that made me re-evaluate my goal in life as a father and a teacher. There have been ups and downs like any other career, but the challenges I have faced have made me a better teacher and a better individual.

Now, as I get older, and hopefully wiser, it is not the frustration that can arise from the educational system and the administrators, or the always evolving technology, tools, or the politics of our industry that cause me the most concern. I have dealt with those for years. It is not the students nor the funding either. It is the hope each year that I can still connect with the learning styles of the new students coming to class. Can I consistently be relevant and useful? That is my biggest concern.

In the end, it all comes back to what got me started on this journey of nearly 40 years, teaching and cars. I get to TEACH students about CARS. I have taken the 3 C’s of the automotive shop repair order from Concern-Cause-Correction, and reworked them into the 3 C’s of the classroom lesson plans, Coach-Counsel-Correct. It has thoroughly been a great experience! Now that I am in my 21st year as a teacher, I still can’t think of doing anything else. Well, not yet anyway.