Irvin Laube has been an educator at West High since 2020 but has been teaching for a total of 33 years. Of those years, 20 were spent as a principal with the remaining 13 spent teaching various forms of academics and extracurriculars. For all of his four years at West, he has been an Algebra one teacher and assisted with algebra math labs.
Laube has decided to continue his teaching career by becoming an assistant High School Principal at the Modern Knowledge School in Manama in the capital of Bahrain, which is a country located off of the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. Very similar to western American education, they use the same standards as West, including AP classes and an IB program for 11th and 12th graders, as well as the classes being taught in english.
Established in 1995, the Modern Knowledge School, in its short time has flourished and grown considerably which has attracted Mr. Laube. “I found this one at an online job fair when the assistant superintendent messaged me for an interview to teach math. After talking with him, I realized I did not want to teach math because of the upper level courses. As we talked, he told me he would have a principal job opening up if I was interested. Obviously I said yes and ended up being offered my pick of 4 principal positions. I chose the assistant high school principal role as I think it fits me best at this time in my career.”
Laube states that, “The thing I am most excited about is getting the opportunity to live in a new part of the world and learn about new cultures.” While this is going to be a considerable change, it is nothing Laube is not used to. From teaching at Allison-Bristow located in Allison, Iowa in 1994,to teaching a new generation in 2024 there are noticeable changes. “Students did not have computers and even the teachers did not have computers at my school. I had to figure all grades by hand.”
Nothing has been able to stop Laube and his passion for teaching within the last 30 years. Laube continues and says, “I have also seen a tremendous improvement in the pedagogy of teaching over the years. Education today is much more focused on engaging the students and attempting to engage them in higher order thinking.”
Carrie Even, head of West High’s math department says “I am so glad Mr.Laube joined our math department because he does an exceptional job teaching Algebra I, and loves teaching it. He builds strong positive relationships with his students and that always helps with the learning process. He has also taken on student teachers sharing his wealth of knowledge with them along with mentoring teachers in our building as well.”
As the school year comes to an end, the long lasting impact Laube has left upon us will never be forgotten. With open arms, the students and staff of West High will always appreciate and remember how involved Laube was. From the Wahawk Insider staff and the rest of Waterloo West High, we all wish him the best.
