When the career outlives the class

Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s in southeast Michigan, John McMillan (BSEd ’74, TeachCert ’74) recalls that his whole life revolved around cars. When he wasn’t fixing them up, he was racing them. His first job out of high school was parking cars at the U-M football stadium on game days. Given his interest, McMillan enrolled in a pre-engineering program at Eastern Michigan University, but when the course material didn’t click, he dropped out and re-enrolled at a community college where he eventually earned his associate degree in automotive repair. 

In the early 1970s, as Michigan faced a teacher shortage, the SOE debuted a two-year program in occupational education. It would train students who already held an associate degree to become educators in their area of expertise. When McMillan was recruited into the program, he soon found himself back in Ann Arbor, where he joined a cohort of students who held degrees in areas ranging from x-ray technology to business. McMillan was riveted by his methods class, and fondly recalls going to Detroit to learn about teaching in an urban setting. He and his classmates formed Sigma Omega Epsilon, the Society of Occupational Educators, a group for professionals like himself who were navigating the college experience as off-campus students. At weekly meetings they helped each other troubleshoot challenges and encouraged fellow members to continue reaching for their degrees. 

McMillan earned his teaching certificate in 1974, and says it was his U-M credential that got him his first job offer. At Whitmore Lake High School he built the shop program from the ground up. At the time, McMillan says kids were into cars the way students today are into computers: “It was a social thing for them. It was also a motivational thing for them. It was very gratifying.” On snow days, he rounded up his students to play hockey on the lake. After school, he chaperoned dances and sporting events. Not only was it a way to earn extra cash, but being outside the classroom gave him an opportunity to see his students in a different light. After three years, he was hired at H.H. Dow High School in Midland, MI where he taught for the next 27 years. Because he was vocationally certified, McMillan was able to develop a program accredited by the Society of Automotive Engineers that afforded his students the opportunity to apprentice in the automotive workforce while they were still in high school. Many were hired full-time right after graduation. As someone who put himself through college by working many jobs over the cumulative seven years it took him to earn his degree, preparing students successfully for employment was particularly meaningful to him. 

Although the SOE’s occupational education program was short-lived, it launched McMillan’s 36-year career in the classroom. His final years of teaching were spent back where he began—at community college—only now he was the professor. Throughout his career, McMillan recalls, “Doors were open not just because of who I was, but also because of my background and my credentials, which started out with U-M.”

He still lives in the Midland area, where he runs into former students everywhere. “What a reward to live in the same community where you taught. If you do the math, and you've had over a hundred students a year, after 36 years you end up with thousands. You see 'em in the grocery store.” Sometimes former students apologize for giving him a tough time when they were in his class. “And I say, ‘Hey, you guys are fine. You came out alright in the end.’ The rewards of teaching compared to having a job where you're making a product and you're putting it in a box and it goes into some truck someplace…we were developing personalities. We were giving them skills. That's the reward in this occupation—you're helping people.”