Behling using fun interactive ways to engage the class for daily instruction. photo by Billy Rodriguez
High energy, high impact: Garien Behling leaving his mark by inspiring students.
For many students, there is always a hope that a connection will be made with a teacher within high school. TJ social studies teacher Garien Behling is naturally energetic and fun, which helps him build connections with his students. He said he is “blessed with an outgoing, high energy kind of personality.” Behling believes that if the class is more engaged, they will learn better. It is more than a craft and Behling says that during the eight hours a day he is here, he wants to “be of service to other people.”
Behling truly believes that “being patient, and kind, and positive with people makes the world a better place and individual people who experience that are going to be able to give those same kinds of things to other people.” He hopes that if he is positive with other people, then they would do the same with others as well. Being positive with students also comes with supporting others beliefs or views. Behling understands that it is very easy to take in information from many places all of the time. However, he believes that actually taking in information, learning how to evaluate it, and creating your own personal arguments is more valuable than following each popular idea. To him, “it doesn’t matter what laws or who you vote for, but [he] will be confident people out there will be making good sound decisions with information and not just for the memes.” Behling focuses on making sure people communicate their arguments and ideas in a respectful and civil manner.
This year, Behling is teaching a new concurrent enrollment (CE) class here at TJ titled African American History. Behling saw a need for students to take more CEcourses. Once he recognized this gap, he gave out some surveys to gauge student interest in different concurrent enrollment courses. Upon seeing the results, Behling chose to go back to school and tack on some extra credits in order to qualify to teach this class. Behling wanted to teach this class because of the great interest coming from his students. Behling didn’t want to just serve these students by picking up the credentials to teach this class, but he went through and figured out the best way for him to learn about this topic and further his own understanding. As a student, he would’ve only wished for opportunities for college credit courses such as the courses offered here at Thomas Jefferson. This made him want to further that opportunity by adding a class not just for college credits, but one that truly interests the students. Behling believes too many schools and classes across the country only “pay lip service to the experiences and contributed to traditionally marginalized people throughout American history.” This made him really happy to teach this class, seeing it as something useful that could speak to a wide variety of people.
Behling likes to be around people, so communication and helping others is a big part of what he gets out of teaching. Those small things make him feel really good. A big reason Behling likes teaching is because it “makes [him] feel good to help other people and [he] wants to feel good every day.” A lot of hope and optimism for the world contribute to these benefits of teaching because he gets to work every day with large diverse groups of people who never fail to amaze him with their own personal stories, growth, and perseverance.
Behling believes he has one teaching style: teaching with intentionality and high energy every day. This ensures that his students, who are becoming young adults, play to their strengths instead of sticking to what everyone expects. Behling was always taught to lean on his strengths and to leave a lot of room for improvement surrounding his weaker areas. One of Behling’s greatest strengths is “bringing high energy and keeping people engaged.” Behling sends out one last message encouraging students to be open to new changing ideas and allowing themselves to be able to grow. Behling is someone who doesn’t just build connections, but lifelong memories and teaching moments that students are able to carry throughout their entire lives, regardless of views in any circumstance or scenario.
