What is your name? Where do you teach? Chris Ginn, Boyet Junior High School in Slidell.

What subjects do you teach? English/language arts and Louisiana history.

What is your favorite thing about the subjects you teach? I love teaching English because having a command of the words that come out of our mouths or from our hands through our keyboards is instrumental to our success in everything we do. As for Louisiana history, let’s just say that I’m so glad that I get to teach it rather than Idaho history. Louisiana is the most historically interesting state in the nation.

Chris Ginn

How long have you been a teacher? I’ve been teaching 13 years.

How has the profession of teaching changed since you started? The advancements in technology have been amazing. When I first started teaching, we still had those old green grade books. Now everything from daily attendance to grades, lesson plans and how we present lessons all relies at least in some part on computers.

Why did you become a teacher? As Hank Williams Jr. noted, “It’s a family tradition.” Other than that, I think it’s important that students today, especially eighth-graders, have good male role models in their lives. Teachers may not think they rub off on their students, but they do.

What is your favorite thing about teaching? Seeing former students succeed in their lives is really neat, but my primary reason is kind of selfish – teaching eighth grade keeps me from getting old and stodgy.

Do you do anything special in the classroom to get through to your students? I think one of the most important things that I do to relate to students is to stay up on what they are interested in and then using that in the classroom. I also get through to them by making sure that they understand I am human by making mistakes then admitting them. I’m not always right, and they can relate.

What is the hardest part of your job? The hardest part for me is dealing with anything that takes away from my time with the students in the classroom. Also, paperwork has always been my Achilles heel. It’s also difficult to listen to some to the inherent griping about anything and everything, but that just seems to go along with teaching. Life’s too short to spend time not being productive.

Are you involved in any extra curricular activities at the school? My extra curricular activity is spending time with my family, so no.

Do you utilize any special technology in the classroom? Our principal at Boyet, Mitch Stubbs, pushed hard for us to have Promethean Boards in our classrooms. He also set up lots of training sessions for us to learn how to use these devices. These boards are basically giant graphics tablets that are hooked up to the computer, and they are interactive. Students use special pens to write on the boards, and it’s like they are working with their favorite technological devices such as iPods and touch-screen computers.

Have you received any grants to aid you in the classroom? No.

What do you do during your summer vacations? I am also an outdoor writer and photographer for magazines like Louisiana Sportsman, Mississippi Sportsman and Louisiana Game & Fish, so I spend a lot of my summer working on photo shoots and gathering story material. We’re also at the baseball park with my son quite a bit through the end of June. Other than that, I spend time managing my property for deer hunting.

Do you aspire to become a principal one day? My calling is to be in the classroom with kids every day, so I have no desire to be a principal.

What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened while you were teaching? Keeping kids interested sometimes requires doing outlandish things. I used to take students’ shoes and throw them out the window. I would eventually crawl out the window and get them. I crawled back in the window with some shoes one day only to find my principal sitting in my chair at my desk with his arms folded and a glaring look on his face. Other than that, I dressed up as President Bush for a “come as your favorite sports figure day,” and my thinking was that he used to own the Texas Rangers, so I could get away with it. This was about a week before the 2004 elections. I had the mask on, blue sports coat, white shirt, red tie, khakis... everything I needed to look conservative. I even had a sign that read “Say No To Drugs” on one side, but the back said, “And John Kerry!” It created quite a stir both good and bad.