What is your name? Where do you teach? My name is Sister Margaret Ann Mire, STJ, and I teach at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School in Slidell.

What subject do you teach?

I teach seventh- and eighth-grade religion.

Sister Margaret Ann Mire

What is your favorite thing about the subject you teach?

I am a religious sister who gets to teach what she attempts to live everyday. I get to tell my students they have dignity and are loved by a God who will never abandon them.

I share their ups and downs and challenge them to grow despite the hardships it may cause. In essence, teaching religion is teaching about the ultimate meaning of life, and to see young people “getting it” is my favorite part of teaching religion.

How long have you been a teacher? This is my 10th year teaching.

How has the profession of teaching changed since you started? We now use a lot more technology in the classroom than when I first began. I am constantly learning about the cyberworld in which my students are immersed in order to relate what I am teaching to them in a way that is relevant.

Why did you become a teacher? The easy answer is that I entered a teaching community after I had completed two years of college. My community then sent me back to college to study education. However, the call to teach came long before entering the convent, in the seventh grade to be precise. In my religious journal that year, I wrote that I wanted to be a sister who taught religion when I grew up. My teachers influenced me tremendously, and I wanted to do the same.

What is your favorite thing about teaching? The founder of my community, St. Henry de Osso, said that if you wanted to change the world, you need only to start by educating its children. Thus, each day I spend with my seventh- and eighth-graders is an investment in our future, and if I can help them to see they are loved and are called to love others in return, our world can only become a much happier and healthier place.

Do you do anything special in the classroom to get through to your students? I try to get my students involved. I take real life situations and use them to teach, or I take what we are learning and say, “How can we use what we now know to make a difference?” For instance, this year my eighth-graders studied the church’s teaching on abortion in their chapter on the fifth commandment. Since then we have written letters to the president-elect, attended the Slidell Life Chain, made cards and cookies for a young mother who opted to carry her child to full term and give her up for adoption, and designed pro-life T-shirts we are currently selling to raise money for a mission trip to Texas. I want them to discuss, apply what they learn and recognize that every single human being can make a difference in this world if only he or she chooses to do so.

What is the hardest part of your job? Teaching morality in today’s society is most difficult. What young people experience in our world is often contrary to the natural law and explicit church teaching. Therefore, they often believe what they see on television, hear on the radio or see others doing is okay. It is hard for them to accept that doing the “right” thing is often counter-cultural and takes an enormous amount of courage.

Are you involved in any extra curricular activities at the school?

I am the moderator of the seventh- and eighth-grade Service Group which is always searching for ways to serve. Right now we are in need of a roof for a house we hope to remodel at Mardi Gras for a family of 11, including two autistic children, who live in Batesville, Texas.

Do you utilize any special technology in the classroom? I use an LCD projector with a laptop as well as a digital camera, and the students use classroom computers.

Have you received any grants to aid you in the classroom? No, but I will have to look into this more. Free money is always helpful.

What do you do during your summer vacations? Each summer I go home to visit my family for two weeks, spend a week with all of the sisters in my community as we gather for meetings, make an eight-day silent retreat and attend our annual mission trip to Batesville to teach Bible school. Occasionally the routine will vary, like last summer when I got to spend three weeks in Australia as a volunteer for World Youth Day with Pope Benedict XVI and this coming summer when I will make a 30-day silent retreat in preparation for final vows.

Do you aspire to become a principal one day? I would not say that I aspire to become a principal. I love teaching and would like to remain in the classroom as long as possible. However, if my community asked me to become a principal, I would be open to the possibility.

What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened while you were teaching? My first year teaching I worked in a magnet school in Nashville.

I was teaching fifth-grade English and social studies. 

On one particular day when I was teaching haikus and my students were making them up in their heads, one student’s hand suddenly shot up as he jumped out of his chair and yelled, “Mama!” 

Never before had I been called “mama” and thankfully never since. Yet, it was a humorous moment that I will never forget.