Alyssa Fox

Helping students with testing material, AP World History teacher Kirstin Geiger-Aguilar explains a concept on a short answer question during her 7th period class. Augilar attended high school in Belgium and attributed her interest in history and other cultures to her experiences there. “I got a very large variety of understanding [from my time in Belgium],” Aguilar said. “Not only from my actual teachers, but from my actual classmates. Everyone brought in their own point of view and their own experiences, so I was able to hear about other people’s experiences [with their cultures].”

A little girl stands in awe as she gazes upon the ancient structures in front of her. Fascination fills her eyes as the ruin in front of her tells stories upon stories about ancient civilization, and her curiosity grows bigger and bigger in her chest by the second. The Mexico heat beats down on her, causing a film of sweat to break on her forehead, something that wasn’t familiar to her in Minnesota. Little did she know, she would soon find herself in many more countries and eventually in a classroom teaching about the history of those countries.

After entering an exchange program and spending the summer after her seventh grade year in Mexico, AP World History teacher Kirstin Geiger-Aguilar found a curiosity and love for history and different cultures. Aguilar is currently in her 19th year of teaching, marking her 19th year with the school as well. After her time with the exchange program, Aguilar attended high school in Belgium where she connected with unexpected teachers.

“It’s kind of interesting because when I moved there, I was really mostly into math and science,” Aguilar said. “Then, with the teachers I had at that high school, I really connected more with my history teacher and my English teacher and I became more interested in those subjects.”

Aguilar’s high school had 62 different nationalities, which only added to her interest in other cultures and the history behind them. 

“I got a very large variety of understanding [from my time in Belgium],” Aguilar said. “Not only from my actual teachers, but from my actual classmates. Everyone brought in their own point of view and their own experiences, so I was able to hear about other people’s experiences [with their cultures].”

After high school, Aguilar attended Tufts University where she earned degrees in Economics and International Relations. Rather than teaching, Aguilar was able to use prior banking experience and her degrees to get her foot in the door with banking as she was a stay-at-home mother at the time.

“I was looking for something to do, maybe part-time,” Aguilar said. “I just started applying for jobs and then I worked part-time for a little while until [my daughter] started school. Then, I [worked] full-time.”

Aguilar worked in small community banks, which were eventually bought out by bigger banks. Aguilar said her job was becoming very narrow and constrained due to the buyouts, which led her to finding a different career path for herself.

“One of the things I did after the second bank I worked at was bought out by a larger bank was I helped them train people when they bought out other banks,” Aguilar said. “So I would travel and train them on the systems and everything, and I was like ‘I like that part of my job.’ So, at first, I thought maybe I’ll do corporate training, then, I thought maybe I should go into teaching because, you know, I really do love history a lot.”

Aguilar began her teaching career student-teaching at Vista Ridge High School before she was hired as a Spanish teacher at Cedar Park.

“It’s harder to get a job teaching social studies,” Aguilar said. “I love Spanish, and I would totally teach Spanish again. I really did like it. But, it was easier being certified as a Spanish teacher to get a job than it is being a social studies teacher, so it took me a while to get into social studies.”

After eventually working her way to teaching AP World History, Aguilar also began using her banking experience to teach AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics, as well as also teaching AP European History.

“I don’t know if I would call it hard, necessarily, but [teaching] does require a lot of time,” Aguilar said. “Especially when you’re teaching something for the first time or the curriculum changes, you really have to be dedicated to spending the time to be able to teach that. In my 19 years teaching, I have taught nine different things, and it’s not just nine different classes. Maybe you get a new textbook one year and you have to redo all that stuff. College Board loves changing the World History curriculum so I don’t know that it’s hard, but it’s time consuming.”

Aguilar is also an AP Question Leader for College Board, where she oversees and helps a group of AP readers grade essays from the AP World History exam.

“A friend of mine at Vista Ridge, she was a reader for AP, and she encouraged me to do it,” Aguilar said. “At first it sounded horrible because it’s like you’re reading essays for eight hours a day, and I know that probably sounds horrible to everyone, but I really wanted to become a better teacher. If you can go there and learn how to grade, you can teach your students how to write the essays to be more successful on the exam. I’ve kind of moved up the ladder so now, I do grade the essays, but I do other things where it’s not sitting down and grading essays for eight hours a day.”

Aguilar said she enjoys teaching high school not only because she loves the subjects, but because she believes that teachers get to see something others do not.

“I feel that teachers, uniquely, get to maybe feel a little more optimistic about the future,” Aguilar said. “I know [the students] and I’m really impressed with my students. I see what good people they are and see how hard working they are, so it makes me feel good about the future to have the students that I do.”