Teacher employs humor to make learning fun

He moves to the front of the classroom, voice booming with enthusiasm, to rile up his students.

"Good afternoon!" he says with a friendly bellow to his sixth-period class.

The students continue talking.

"Good afternoon," he repeats, louder this time. The students reciprocate the greeting, turn around in their desks, and focus their eager eyes on the spectacle in the center of the classroom.

The smiling spectacle is Anthony Knox, a Coronado High School teacher, sports coach and club adviser, and the classroom is his domain.

Every day, U.S. history and advanced placement economics students turn their heads and tune their ears to Knox's lectures, which he bases on his lecture theory of reviewing the concept, giving a real-world example and providing review for the students -- all mixed with a dash of zeal.

"My teaching style is part stand-up comedian, part college lecturer and part vaudeville," said Knox, who holds student eating contests and other unconventional classroom activities.

As irrelevant as those events might seem to learning about the American Revolution or studying the characteristics of supply and demand, Knox believes the tactics work. His students agree.

"Mr. Knox always relates lessons to real-life situations for teenagers and that's really enjoyable," said Lauren Hewitt, a senior who has Knox for AP economics and was in his honors U.S. history class last year.

Knox said he believes that if he creates an environment where students thirst for learning, like he did as a child, and they feel the teacher respects and doesn't belittle them, participation and understanding will ensue.

"In my first year as a teacher, I felt as if my job was to keep kids disciplined," Knox said. "My second year was the real turning point though, when I realized that I was part of a team as opposed to being the 'evil dictator.' The kids see me as 'one of us, but he's in charge.' I didn't pull the 'I'm better than you,' but the 'I'm with you.' I give students the respect and the charisma."

Even outside of the classroom, Knox, who is in his eighth year of teaching, expresses his fascination with learning and understanding the world around him. He has worked as the Coronado girls basketball coach and head coach of the school's Varsity Quiz team. He also started the AP world history and AP economics programs at Coronado, and he has advised and coached a plethora of other in-school activities, as well as being the official announcer for Coronado's football team, where he most recently started a radio show on ustream.com giving the play-by-play of all the school's football games.

It would seem as if Knox would knock himself silly managing full-time teaching, advising and coaching, while maintaining a family life with his wife and two daughters, but Knox attributes his success as a multitasker to two elements: hard work and efficiency.

Knox was born in Cincinnati and raised by a single mom. He moved to Albuquerque, N.M., during high school. He watched his mother support two kids with one job, and he admires and tries to emulate the ambition and work ethic she put into her job while she moved up the ranks in her company.

With a drive he accumulated early on from his mother and his thirst for learning, Knox, who considers himself the "classic brainiac," studied German from first to eighth grade, four periods a day. Because of his hard work, in the seventh grade, Knox was allowed to join a foreign-exchange program through which he traveled to Germany and lived with a German family. Not only did his experience in Germany give him a taste for travel, but it also opened his eyes to his place in the world.

"My exchange trip to Germany took a lot of work," Knox said. "I realized through the experience that the world is a big place. The game is to drink up as much as you can."

When trying to achieve his goals, Knox still uses the same hard work and efficiency that took him to Germany. He has created interactive and in-depth powerpoints for his students, led his Varsity Quiz and sports teams to dominance, and has designed a multifaceted classroom that allows kids to learn, understand, create, discuss and practice the learning material all in one period.

Although Knox has many plans and dreams for the future -- possibly moving to China to teach students, perhaps pursuing his doctorate in economics, maybe becoming an educational specialist for the Federal Reserve -- he feels he can always rely on his family's support and his charisma.

"I want people to remember me as a leader and a friend at the same time. I am outspoken, but when they do get to know me, people like what I'm about. I want to be someone to look up to and I want to end up living up to it."