36 Years Of History Retire With Bob Lingow

Thirty years ago, when the Vietnam War was bursting onto our national psyche, Bob Lingow was teaching history in Room 215 of West Valley High School.

Today, he’s still there. Still teaching. Only now, he teaches the Vietnam War.

One day this week, he passed out reading material to a classroom of juniors taking U.S. history. The sheets held the lyrics to songs such as Country Joe and the Fish’s “Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’to-Die Rag” and Merle Haggard’s “Proud to be an Okie.”

He spoke in a thunderous voice, probing for answers, asking if the lyrics were serious or sarcastic, if the songs were pro-war or anti.

“What kind of music do you listen to today? Do you guys listen to the lyrics?” he asked. Several students nodded, and then he asked if the lyrics reflect on the times and possibly the government.

Fiddling with a tape recorder is not Lingow’s forte. But with a student’s help, the music rang out: “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, the next stop is Viet Nam.”

The teens followed along on their sheets.

“What a lot of adults don’t realize is that Vietnam is ancient history,” Lingow said, after class.

Lingow, himself, will be history at the end of this school year. He’s retiring after 36 years, most of it in Room 215. The West Valley School District gave Lingow its You Make a Difference Award this week.

“You teach kids and then history, but like great teachers you have really been teaching life’s lessons according to Bob Lingow.” That’s how West Valley Principal Cleve Penberthy describes Lingow’s work.

He has taught fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, even his fellow teachers. A young substitute teacher who came in between classes said he remembers sitting in Lingow’s class not so many years ago.

Lingow taught junior high for seven years at the beginning of his career. Other than that - “and two years of hell as a vice principal” - he’s taught high school history.

Burnout hasn’t been a problem, Lingow said. Students are different each year, he said, and he knows that he can reach most of his pupils, even those who’re more concerned with jobs than gpa’s.

“I’m idealistic enough to think that they’ll be voting citizens someday.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Katherine Koedinger, a sophomore at West Valley High School who job-shadowed staff writer Marny Lombard one day this week, contributed to this report.