Chris Lev

Professor

“You have to read their faces, because the faces will tell you whether they understand or not.”

As assistant principal of an inner city junior high school Chris Lev got used to dealing with the toughest kind of student. “They often have to fight gangs just to come to school,” he tells. “Many come from single parent homes where the parent works two jobs just to make ends meet. Our schools are being asked to do an awful lot of what society used to do. And that’s a real big burden.”

Chris finally left his job and joined the ranks of SMC as a teacher of history. “I fulfilled a dream when I came back to teach at the college,” says this SMC alumnus who studied here in the late 60s. “I took away then and now I’m giving back.”

As an instructor in the adult education program, Chris helps high school drop-outs to get their high school diplomas and thus pave their way to college. “I’m trying to give them the test-taking, note-taking and reasoning skills they need to be successful in college,” says Chris, adding, “That also builds up their self-confidence.”

Chris brings not only a passion for history to the classroom but also an approach to teaching that is geared toward developing critical indepenent thinking. “I don’t ever want students to know where I stand on a particular issue,” he says. “I try to get them to go beyond the emotion and use logic and reason.”

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