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David Christie, Johnson High School geography teacher changes students lives | EXCEL Award

Christie strives to bring the world to student in more ways than one --- He shares his travel experiences from places like Egypt and everywhere in between.

SAN ANTONIO — Our KENS 5 Excel winner is a teacher who has come full circle. Having grown up in San Antonio, he’s a product of North East ISD schools.

He left, explored the world and returned home to teach at Johnson High School where he now shares his knowledge and compassion.

The school district wanted to recognize him. KENS 5 Anchor Sarah Forgany joined them on Zoom to give him a big surprise.

Mr. David Christie thought someone else was being honored. Little did he know, The KENS 5 Team, Credit Human and North East ISD staff were on that zoom presentation for him.  

“Surprise Mr. Christie,” KENS 5 Anchor Sarah Forgany said to Christie while holding up the EXCEL award and a $1000 check from Credit Human.

The North East ISD Superintendent Dr. Sean Maika, was also there in person to honor him.

"I was completely expecting something different,” Christie said with a chuckle.

Different is why his 9th grade geography classes are hard to forget.

Christie strives to bring the world to students in more ways than one.  He shares his travel experiences from places like the Grand Canyon National Park, Egypt, Morocco, and France where he once worked as a tour Guide. But it's not all about visiting fun and cool sites.

Around the world, there are over 1.1 billion people living on a dollar a day said Christie.

So in his classes, they watch documentaries like "Living on One" to get a deeper meaning of the world around them.

"We try to imagine, you know, what would it be like to live on a dollar a day? What would you have to give up? Would that even be possible in our own community,” Christie said, "They're looking at people who are living so differently than they are. We live in a community, sometimes of abundance. And so a lot of students are seeing for the first time what it looks like some to live dramatically different from their own lives."

Christie gives them a lesson in compassion and in return they give back.

In one case, it was a simple Thank You letter from one of his students that read in part, “Thank You, you sent me down a path of success.”

"Those are the moments that remind you that what you're doing is really valuable,” Christie said.

Christie is also a sponsor for The Johnson Academic Guidance Guardian's peer mentorship which helps bullied children. It allows older students to mentor younger kids under guidance of teachers like Christie.

 

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