After the last day of school, Flathead High School history teacher and department head Sean O’Donnell readied his classroom for summer. A few students dashed around the mostly empty hallways clearing lockers and trashing notes.

O’Donnell sat at his desk. On the wall, photos of family hang next to a framed collection of vintage presidential buttons.

“I’ve got every presidential button except [Warren] Harding. And I need to get Harding for the 20th century. He’s pretty dull,” O’Donnell, 43, said with a laugh. “No one thinks of Harding. He’s ignored in history — a lot of scandal. I think that’s my next Christmas present.”

Behind him are bookshelves packed with tomes covering the annals of history. The serious tone of history is broken up by O’Donnell’s humor. Above the bookshelf, presidential Pez dispensers — a gift from a colleague — are displayed. And it doesn’t stop with Pez dispensers. O’Donnell has a collection of 12 presidential bobble heads.

“I love my bobble heads. These are the weird things my family has to buy for me at Christmas,” O’Donnell said.

It is only fitting that a history buff like O’Donnell would be teaching at a school with roots dating back to 1910.

O’Donnell himself is part of the high school’s history — even his classroom. He graduated from Flathead in 1991.

“I actually took government in this classroom. I sat in the back. I’m sure I was a real treat,” O’Donnell said.

Now in his 20th year of teaching at the school, O’Donnell initially didn’t think about becoming a teacher after high school graduation, let alone returning to Flathead.

“Right before graduation I remember walking out of here and going, ‘that’s the last time I’ll walk into Flathead High.’ I was quite sure of it,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell thought he would go into pre-law. Yet, after volunteering in a law firm he learned quickly the job was far removed from the intense action shown on popular TV shows. Rather, it involved a lot of tedious paperwork. He decided to follow in the footsteps of educators in his family, which included his mother and grandfather.

He returned to Flathead for his first job interview, which included his former U.S. history teacher, Bernie Olson. Olson was one of his favorite teachers because he had a gift of storytelling — a quality O’Donnell embodies in his own teaching style.

“The best teachers back then, for me, were great storytellers,” O’Donnell said. “They were active and engaged.”

What has shaped O’Donnell public speaking skills has been involvement in speech and debate. He currently serves as a speech and debate assistant coach alongside his wife, head coach Shannon O’Donnell.

“Oh yeah, I was a speech kid here,” O’Donnell said.

His event was extemporaneous speaking, an event focused on persuasive speeches on national and international social and political events. In college he competed in extemporaneous, impromptu speaking and oratory.

Speech and debate — and extemporaneous speaking — is a family affair. His stepson, Flathead graduate Wyatt McGillen, was a state champion in extemporaneous speaking. His other son, Scott, will be a freshman next year and has plans to compete in extemporaneous speaking O’Donnell said. And the O’Donnells are working on persuading their youngest child, Molly, who will be in seventh grade, to at least try a year of speech in high school to get public speaking skills.

“Every day at home we live speech and debate to the point that the kids, our children, say ‘no speech talk at dinner time,’” O’Donnell said.

As with speech, history might as well be considered another family member. On family vacations history is not left behind. Even in Hawaii there are historical palaces to see and Pearl Harbor to visit.

“Scott’s rolling his eyes, ‘even when we’re in Hawaii we don’t get to go to the beach,’” O’Donnell said, laughing again. “Especially when we take my mom with us. She’s just as bad because she’s been a history nut all of her life.”

His mother, and next-door neighbor Lana Shura instilled this tradition growing up.

“I’ve seen every Native American museum from here to California and back because if there was either a mission or a Native American [museum] we stopped,” he said.

O’Donnell’s favorite chapter of history encompasses the 20th century — particularly World War II and the Cold War and he has a growing appreciation for modern Chinese history.

Whatever the topic, O’Donnell is certain to present multiple primary and secondary sources along with multiple perspectives. Teaching methods have changed considerably from his time as a student and the textbooks aren’t central to lesson plans.

“For us [teachers] it makes it harder, but you really have to get away from the textbook,” O’Donnell said.

Teaching history has gone beyond the traditional time line and memorization of facts. In International Baccalaureate classes particularly, O’Donnell gets to go into depth. Although he can’t cover the breadth of topics, students are equipped with analytical skills when they leave his classroom.

“The way we teach history is changing. Simply the mindset of what is history has changed. Part of our job as history teachers simply isn’t to give them facts. Although facts are important, it’s also to get them to evaluate and analyze and come to a conclusion based on those facts and that intelligent, capable people will disagree on what’s the most important facts and what’s the most important story to be told,” O’Donnell said.

His aim is to get students to think critically.

“It’s not just [presenting] documents either. It’s what do experts think about those documents,” O’Donnell said. “Is it simply great men doing great things — or is it the people living it?” O’Donnell said. “Look at the Great Depression. We could spend the whole time looking at FDR and the New Deal, but what’s happening on the ground? What does it look like for the person living it? What’s happening in the culture?”

His passion for teaching recently was recognized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, naming him the 2016 Montana History Teacher of the Year.

His care and concern for both history and his students is not lost on them. Instead of the proverbial apple, students give him gifts related to their favorite lessons or jokes shared in the classroom.

O’Donnell pulled down a box sitting next to his presidential Pez dispensers and pulled out an Abraham Lincoln hand puppet. He pulled out a replica of a Soviet military Cossack hat and put it on his head for just a moment. He doesn’t want anyone to get ideas. Tossing aside a purple, furry stuffed animal and a tin of canned meat, he picked up a large rabbit wearing a yellow raincoat and hat. Setting it on a desk he pushed a button and the song “I can see Clearly Now” plays. The rabbit’s hat pops up and down.

“I usually use this one on a child having a bad day,” O’Donnell said with a big grin. “How can you stay mad when this is playing?”

Good grades and top students who come out of his classroom don’t happen in a vacuum.

“The relationship piece is so important to get the rigor piece,” O’Donnell said. “Kids are motivated for teachers who like them and enjoy what they’re doing.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson can be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.