History teacher Mike Muhovich has always felt a connection to Abraham Lincoln. From a young age Muhovich has loved all things history, from the wars to the presidents. With this little nerdy love for Lincoln, his passion for history continued to grow. He now retires after teaching history at Fullerton for the past 24 years. 

Muhovich always knew he wanted to do something with history; however, he never envisioned himself as a teacher. 

“I started becoming interested in history because of a little love of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, but when I was young, I never could envision myself being a history teacher,” Muhovich said. “History is a whole new world. When it felt like I got to be a student again, it continued to feed a passion.”

With this love of history, Muhovich decided to take a leap of faith and pursue teaching. He always knew teaching young students would be rewarding, but never would have expected just how much he has impacted his students. 

“It’s hilarious to me that you guys know me as Mr. Muhovich,” Muhovich said. “That used to make me laugh inside, like, wow, there’s actually people on the planet that look at me as an adult. I’m supposed to be someone who’s leading them somewhere. And that’s part of just the, I think the root, the enjoyment of teaching.”

Over time, Muhovich has grown to enjoy all that teaching brings, from seeing young minds at work and being able to spread his passion for history.

“It’s really hard to tell someone this is my job cause I’ve never tried to look at it as a job, Muhovich said. “I feel like I’ve been very lucky. It’s just the way that I’m wired but I think I’ve found ways to kind of make it my own and figure out ways to make it enjoyable. I’m giving students the opportunity to be historians and I think that’s really special.”

AP European History is many sophomores’ first AP class, which puts a significant amount of pressure on Muhovich to ease them into higher-level learning. This is a task that Muhovich excels at, preparing students for the brunt that junior year will bring. 

A trend in education is to ask students to talk more with each other while learning. Although collaboration is nice, that is not what Muhovich’s students want. He has the unique talent and charisma to make 15-year-olds completely enthralled about a political scandal 700 years ago.

“You know how whenever people talk and they’re so passionate about what they’re teaching, it makes it that much more enjoyable and really made me like history,” said senior Sam Saldana, who plans to pursue a history major in college. “It wasn’t like only memorizing the facts, but he made it interesting.”

Going into AP Euro without taking AP Human Geography her freshman year, it was a huge jump for Saldana from regular history. However, Muhovich’s willingness to listen and answer questions helped her make a seamless transition. 

“Second semester writing SAQs, LAQs, and everything just clicked,” Saldana said.

“I started sitting back in Mr. Muhovich’s class during lunch to ask him questions about the reading then it finally clicked.”

Specifically, during the lessons about the Reformation and French Revolution is when Saldana truly came to enjoy history.

“We were learning about the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation. And we were learning how a bunch of different religions and denominations came out of it,” Saldana said. “When I was reading it and trying to understand what the textbook was saying, I would ask him questions about what the textbook said and he would go beyond the textbook and share more about the religion and I was like wow that is so interesting.”

A key part in his ability to prepare students is his close relationships with other teachers. History teacher David Shanebeck has worked closely alongside Muhovich to integrate their curriculums and give students the building blocks to be successful in AP United States History their junior year.

In their time together, Muhovich and Shanebeck have built a close relationship, extending outside the classroom and school hours. Along with retired history teacher Mark Henderson, the three honors history teachers formed what many knew as the “Holy Trinity.” From being colleagues to friends, they frequently hung out, even traveling to Europe with one another. 

This close relationship has inspired Shanebeck during his teaching career.

 “We’d go to McDonald’s after school together and get ice cream or sweet tea or go to coffee during and after school hours, and that’s where we really built our friendship,” Shanebeck said. “It’s funny because we wouldn’t just talk about school and education, although you would get the three of us into a room and we would talk history. We couldn’t help it. Having that relationship for so many years pushed me to be the teacher that I am.”

Although Muhovich won’t physically be on campus after this school year, his charisma and luscious locks will not be forgotten. 

With his new-found free time, Muhovich hopes to spend his retirement traveling. Although he will not be teaching history anymore, he still wants to continue learning. 

“I do think travel is like education. It makes you a better person, it rounds you out,” Muhovich said. “There are still parts of Europe I have to explore, so I’ll continue that till I get tired.”