With this new school year we welcomed many new faces to our teaching staff. One of them being Mr. Johnson. Johnson teaches Algebra 2 and Applied Mathematics, with his students being mostly 11th and 12th graders with a few 10th graders mixed in. This is Johnson’s first year teaching, although he did student teach for 2 years across 2 different schools in South Georgia. 

Johnson went to Georgia Southern University. Where he got his Bachelor’s in Secondary Mathematics Education. 

When Mr Johnson was asked why he became a teacher he said, ‘The story for why I became a teacher goes back to my 11th grade math teacher inspiring me and helping me realize that teaching is something I wanted to do.’

One of his favorite parts about teaching is getting to have interactions with students and co-workers on a daily basis. He says ‘there is always something new and exciting to talk about.’

When he was asked what was one frustrating part about being a teacher, he gave a very expected answer. ‘Having too much to do and not enough time to do it’ which I think we can all relate to. 

‘My goal for this school year is to teach as much math as possible while having students that still enjoy coming to my classroom.’ Johnson wants to create a classroom environment where students can come learn and feel confident in their abilities. 

I asked Mr Johnson, ‘What made you choose our school? What stood out about us?’ and he responded with, ‘I chose Central because I was deciding between two schools in the area and Central seemed to have a really solid foundation of staff that had been here for a while.’ 

One thing Johnson is looking forward to this year is being able to know as many students in the school as possible. 

When he was asked about one interesting thing about himself he said ‘One interesting thing about me is that I am a big Atlanta Braves fan, and sports in general.’ So if you ever wanna talk about math or sports, Mr Johnson is your teacher. 

Outside of school you can find Mr. Johnson watching and playing sports, his favorite being baseball. But you can also find him enjoying hikes and kayaking. Which was one of the reasons he chose to move to Chattanooga.

One life lesson Mr. Johnson hopes his students learn from his class is to not be afraid to fail. He said ‘Failure is a part of life and the sooner you learn to deal with it, the better. Failure is also a part of learning, if you don’t ever fail, you probably are not learning much.’

As Mr Johnson’s students look at their future, his best piece of advice he could give is ‘to try and do as many things as possible to make yourself happy. Life is difficult and there are a lot of things that we have to do that we do not necessarily want to do. One way to keep life enjoyable is to take time to do things that genuinely make you happy.’