Coming full circle: APSU teacher resident explores family’s World War II history through Gilman Scholarship

By: Ethan Steinquest July 9, 2026

Senior 6-8 middle school math education major Andrew Daniels in his classroom at Kenwood Middle School, where he has worked for three years as part of the Grow Your Own Teacher Residency. | Photo by Robyn Jacobs

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - When Andrew Daniels traveled to Poland and Germany this summer, he learned the full scope of what his family lived through in World War II: his great-grandfather, a pastor who opposed the Nazi Party, was marked for a concentration camp but spared because he worked as a mechanic, and his family was later forced to flee their home to escape the advancing Soviet army.

Daniels heard plenty of stories growing up about what the war cost his family. For years, he hoped to visit Europe and learn about those experiences firsthand. He never had the means, but that changed when Austin Peay State University’s Global Education Office helped him earn a scholarship to study abroad through the Gilman Program.

Andrew Daniels atop Krakus’ Mound, a historical monument overlooking Kraków, Poland. The city is known for its preserved medieval architecture and Jewish quarter. | Contributed photo

“This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and without the Gilman Scholarship it wouldn’t have been possible,” said Daniels, a senior 6-8 middle school math education major and Navy veteran. “I didn’t realize how much of a connection my family had to what was going on, and how easily they could have been sent to the camps. It was very intense, but it’s something I’ll forever remember and be grateful for.”

Daniels visited Poland from May 9-25 as part of a trip led by Dr. John Steinberg, a professor in the Department of History & Philosophy. The students explored Nazi Germany’s conquest of Poland and the Holocaust’s impact at historic sites like Auschwitz.

“We were able to walk through the actual gas chamber at Auschwitz, which was very eerie,” Daniels said. “I ended up crying because we saw children’s uniforms, luggage, and shoes. Most children who were 14 or younger were led off the train and walked straight to the gas chamber, and that realization hit me harder than a lot of people because for the last three years of my life I’ve only worked with children 14 or younger [as a teacher and youth soccer coach].”

For Daniels, none of the history stayed abstract. Poland showed him the scale of what his family escaped, and in Germany his relatives filled the gaps in the stories he grew up hearing.

After the class trip, he traveled to Germany to meet his two great-uncles, their wives, and a cousin he now talks to weekly. He also visited his grandmother’s childhood home and met her lifelong best friend, even calling her so the two could catch up.

Andrew Daniels meets his grandmother’s childhood best friend and her husband while visiting Germany. He also visited his grandmother’s childhood home in Detmold, a historic city in Germany’s Lippe district. | Contributed photo

“It was surreal to see my family history and where we came from, and to meet these people my grandmother has told me about for years,” Daniels said. “My great-uncles are in their 80s, and there’s no way they’re doing eight- or 10-hour flights to America. To be able to see them and talk with them meant everything.”

The trip also made Daniels the first student in APSU’s Grow Your Own Teacher Residency to study abroad.

“That opens the door for people to realize that even if you’re part of a program with a different schedule, you’re very much able to do things with the rest of the university,” he said.

Grow Your Own is the nation’s first federally registered teaching apprenticeship and allows students to work as paid teacher residents while earning a bachelor’s degree in education over three years. Daniels teaches math at Kenwood Middle School and is on track to graduate in August.

Senior math education major Andrew Daniels teaches a lesson at Kenwood Middle School through APSU’s Grow Your Own Teacher Residency. | Photo by Robyn Jacobs

“That path started with my mom - she’s an educator, and she’s been doing early elementary and kindergarten for a while,” he said. “My grandmother on my dad’s side was also an educator for over 30 years, so I’ve always been surrounded by teachers.”

Daniels took a winding route to the classroom, earning an associate degree in communications before serving in the Navy as a nuclear mechanic. He found his calling after leaving the service and moving to Clarksville, where a parent from the youth soccer team he coached suggested he try teaching.

“The more I thought about it, the more I realized teaching and coaching are the same thing,” he said. “It’s just that what you’re teaching is different.”

Daniels has worked with sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders through Grow Your Own while learning classroom management and student engagement skills. After graduation, he will teach Algebra II at Rossview High School under a three-year contract with the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System.

“I’ve really come to love it and enjoy it … helping students learn, grow, and find that ‘aha moment,’” he said. “There’s one student who’s in eighth grade now, and I’ve watched her go through all the grades and taught her. She also plays soccer at the same club I coach at, so it’s really cool being able to see her in school and say, ‘You did so awesome on Saturday, I saw that goal.’ It’s great having that kind of relationship with the kids.”

As an educator, Daniels emphasizes math’s relationship to every subject and how it can be used in daily life. He plans to take what he learned in Europe to connect students’ history lessons to their statistics work.

“Math and science usually go hand-in-hand, and so do history and language arts,” he said. “But sometimes bridging that gap between math and history is difficult, and this is a powerful way to do that. I think it’s important for students to understand where the world has come from, where their families may have come from.”

Daniels is still developing his Gilman Follow-on Service Project, with the goal of showing students and staff at his school why seeing the world firsthand matters.

“We really are all the same,” he said. “We all have the same struggles. The only difference is where we live and the language we speak. That’s something I want my students to see.”