Columbia Falls English teacher will be missed

Columbia Falls High School English teacher Michael Christensen is most often thought of as a great speech and debate coach, but he also has taught Columbia Falls students for three decades. He is retiring at the end of this school year.

Christensen said in retirement he will do “whatever my wife tells me.” But, he also plans to “travel as often and see as much as I possibly can of the world.”

He is used to traveling and seeing the world. His parents were both educators, thus he moved a lot while growing up. He has lived in 11 states and visited all but one continent, Africa. Christensen’s wife, Janae, is a teacher at Ruder Elementary. His three children are Emilee, Stephanie and Anna — none are teachers.

He rejects the idea of a bucket list because he says it sounds depressing, instead he’s going to pursue his own writing. Graduation speeches, eulogies and Christmas letters were the extent of his written work while in education.

He attended the University of Massachusetts as an undergraduate and Montana State University as a graduate student. In addition to his 34 years at Columbia Falls High School, he taught for a time in Bozeman, Joplin-Inverness and Seattle.

Christensen was a coach with the Columbia Falls’ winning forensics team from 1990 to 2010. The team won 10 state Class A championships in those two decades. He was named to the Montana State Forensics Educators Association Hall of Fame last year.

Mikel Knutson met Christensen while on the speech and debate team. He took AP Language to have him as a teacher. Knutson said at times he is more like a coach than a teacher.

“He’s willing to put that extra time, if you’re willing to learn how to write and succeed in college,” he said.

Student Ali Gould hasn’t been challenged in her past English classes, but Christensen’s class is different.

“I’m being encouraged to push myself,” she said.

He is a “master teacher” according to colleague Alia Hanson. She believes he has raised the bar for his fellow teachers as well as students.

She has learned from him how to challenge students to do their best and how to teach writing well. She considers writing to be one of the hardest topics to teach.

Christensen asks students to grapple with philosophical questions, then apply those ideas to make their lives better, Hanson said. Christensen doesn’t teach from textbooks. He stopped using them two years into his career at the high school.

His students don’t mind the pressure.

“I find it helpful that he lets us form our own opinions on the material he gives us, instead of telling us what to think about it,” Ava Chisholm said.

“I think he’s less teaching us how to write, but instead teaching us how to think for ourselves,” Knutson said.

Colleague Gary Menning has taught with Christensen for 13 years and watched him develop a rich curriculum for the seniors.

“He is absolutely one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with,” Menning said.

But Menning’s first impression of Christensen was less flattering.

“I thought he was pompous and stuffy,” Menning said. He said as a loud, boisterous person himself, he didn’t realize Christensen actually has a dry sense of humor. Since then they’ve become great friends.

Soozi Crosby, high school librarian, has known him for 12 years.

One of her first experiences with him, ended up making her cry. She walked into his classroom while he was giving an end of the year speech to his seniors, and was amazed at his sincerity.

She said he’s the kind of person who naturally demands respect from others. He treats his senior students like adults and is always eloquent and calm, she said.

Christensen has also had the opportunity to teach with past students.

Beth Benton is a 2008 graduate and choir teacher at the high school. She took British literature with Christensen.

She was terrified of him when they first met when she was an underclassman. On a band trip to New York, she accidentally whacked him with her oversized backpack.

“And he said, ‘That’s the only thing on this trip bigger than my stomach,’” she recalled. “And then I wasn’t scared of him anymore.”

A current student had a similar opinion.

“He has like a fun, soft side to him. Everyone thinks he’s super serious, and kind of scary, but that’s not what we learned when we stepped in the classroom,” Tya Bonawitz said.

“Gosh, we’re just going to miss him so much. It feels like there’s going to be a big hole here without him,” Hanson said.