Classroom decor reveals teacher’s passion for history

“Local history is sexy.”

This bold phrase is plastered onto a sign pinned to history teacher Matt Torrens’s classroom wall. If the rest of the decorations that camouflage his classroom are any indication to the past, than history, is indeed, very alluring.

In effort to provide a stimulating learning environment for students, Torrens weaves his personal interests into his classroom, resulting in decorations that blast students into the past.

Spanning one entire wall, license plates from all 50 states shout states’ proud slogans, except for 13 gaps sprinkled throughout the line.

“He moves those [license plates] to the front wall as you study the 13 colonies,” said his ninth-grade daughter, Sydney, who was doing homework in his room after school until her dad was ready to go home.

Bought from eBay, Torrens’s collection of license plates is actually his second, as his first one resides in the first school where he taught at in Utah. Torrens compiled the first set while on a road trip across America during his first summer off from teaching.

It all started at a gas station garage in Colorado, where Torrens explained to the mechanic that he is a history teacher and would love to have a license plate he saw pinned up on the garage’s wall to hot glue to his classroom’s map.

“[The mechanic] said sure, and every time we stopped for gas, I asked to have a license plate because most gas stations have them,” Torrens said.

After completing the collection, Torrens did some trading to gather license plates with famous slogans such as ‘The Oregon Trail’ for that state.

“Most states have 10 to 15 different license plates. I wanted the ones with the historical phrases,” he said.

In a pepper shaker at the back of the classroom next to his desk, Torrens keeps some proof of his popular John Brown story.

Two years ago, he took an AP US History class to the Madronia cemetery near downtown Saratoga to witness a ceremony where ashes from abolitionist John Brown, whose grave lies buried on the east coast, were sprinkled on top of his wife’s grave at this cemetery. When the speaker was not looking, alumnus Jae Lee scooped up some ashes into a container to take back to the classroom.

“He captured John Brown’s ghost,” Sydney Torrens said with a shiver.

Further reference to Torrens’s roots in Utah can be found atop a bookshelf across from the license plates.

“While we were [in Utah] my dad fell in love with local history,” Sydney said.

Almost every year, Torrens organizes his favorite and most popular ‘Wild Wild West’ field trip to Moab, Utah, where students go off-roading, explore canyons and hieroglyphics, and visit an abandoned airplane crash sight filled with parts and pieces strewn about in the bushes.

The students explore the sight as Torrens explains how the war plane may have possibly carried radioactive material. Sometimes the students take back some pieces of scrap metal as souvenirs, one of which resides in the bookshelf.

“He thinks it’s cool, I think it’s sad,” Sydney Torrens said with a grin.