Mentor Teachers At NSA
By Aaron Cady
One of the best parts about North Star is the amazing teachers. Their hard work and dedication allow us students to learn and enjoy our classes. NSA has nearly one hundred teachers spread out over nine grades and a wide variety of subjects. While most teachers focus on one or two subjects, like English or science, there is another type of teacher at NSA. Jim Teague is a mentor teacher here at North Star. Many students may not know what exactly this is, but mentor teachers are a very important part of the school system.
Mr. Teague was born in Burbank, California in 1945. He and his family moved around a lot, but he returned to Burbank and there graduated high school. He currently lives in Denton, Texas. After high school, Mr. Teague went to college and earned degrees in engineering, along with a minor in math. After that, he joined the US military. “I was in the Air Force for 11 years. The last 3 years were in Hawaii, Pacific AF Command. I worked with Korean air bases to upgrade their defenses against North Korean attacks,” he said. “We ran simulation attacks on the bases, and then tried to determine better defenses like revetments [which are structures designed to absorb incoming energy] and shelters for planes.”
During his time in the Air Force, Dr. Teague traveled throughout the United States, as well as a year in Thailand. He worked on nuclear weapons tests in New Mexico, earned his Masters Degree in Ohio, and helped keep the Thailand base electricity running while the generator was offline. In White Sands, New Mexico, Mr. Teague took part in (at that time) the largest non-nuclear explosion in history. From there, he moved to Hawaii and worked on Korean air bases as described above.
While in Hawaii, he also began to teach at a local church school. He taught high school level science and math courses during a weeklong leave. “After a lot of prayer and consultation, I left the Air Force in 1979 and began teaching in a small two-hundred student middle/high school out in the middle of a cane field,” says Mr. Teague. “It was a calling of the Lord and a true mission field. I was the science department chair at this school for eight years. The last year I was also the principal of the middle and high schools.”
Currently, Mr. Teague is a mentor teacher at North Star. He has also taught physics and algebra. Mentor teachers help students move through their courses and stay on track. “I'm a helper and encourager and organization teacher. I can take time to do this where a teacher with 200+ students cannot look in detail,” he says, “this is usually done when a student has fallen far behind the recommended NSA pacing, so the mentor has to look at the number of tasks left and deadlines to devise schedules that will get the student to the end.” His responsibilities range from answering questions about the course to devising a plan to help a student finish the course on pace while still learning an adequate amount of information to helping students who have struggled with academic integrity. He also occasionally helps out a student if they are struggling in a particular area and the course teacher doesn’t have the time to go as in-depth.
Mr. Teague has been married to his wife for almost fifty-four years. They have two sons and nine grandchildren. The older of his two children worked in the US Navy for over thirty years before retiring. His younger son works in architecture for a company that has helped repair the Capitol dome in Washington D.C. as well as the chandeliers in Grand Central Station in New York. When he isn’t mentoring students at North Star, Mr. Teague enjoys playing pickleball, riding bikes, and target shooting. He is also a musician. “I like to play boogie and ragtime piano,” he says, “because it’s such happy music.” Other than that, he also gardens and reads.
Mr. Teague is only one example of the fantastic teachers at North Star. They are part of what makes our school so great. The teachers are just as diverse and exciting as the student body. Together, the teachers and students help make North Star such a special and unique school.
Columns: 👤NSA People
Aaron Cady is a senior at North Star. He has attended NSA for six years and has written for the Navigator for three of those years. Journalism is one of his passions, and he hopes to continue with it after graduation.