Not many teachers want to teach German at school because in comparison to other languages it’s harder to learn. It’s taught because German has played an essential role in the American educational system. 

Mr. (Herr) Gwin is new this year at Liberty. Before coming to LHS, he was an assistant principal. Gwin started teaching in 1996 and he taught German and English for seven years. He has been teaching German online since about 2020, due to the start of the pandemic.

“That’s how I got back into German,” he said. 

So why does Mr. Gwin teach German?

“I retired and finished my career in 30 years,” he said. Mr. Nelson is one of his friends and he was looking for a German teacher at Liberty because there are not enough German teachers around. It’s a part-time job here so it was hard to find someone. 

Gwin has been to Germany a couple of times and he also lived there for a few months with his wife and his daughter.

“I lived for three or four months on a dairy farm on the top floor. We had fresh milk every morning,” Gwin said.

In Gwin’s freetime he travels a lot and “in spring break we’re going to Cancun.” Playing bridge is still another thing he likes to do in his free time. 

Before going into teaching, Gwin was a professional card player.

“We would take old people on vacation tours to Africa or Europe, and we took them to play bridge with the locals in whatever country we were in.” And then he taught at college for a little while and started to teach at schools. 

Adrianna Laurenti, a freshman, explained that Mr. Gwin is outgoing and tries his best to help his students understand German. Sometimes he can make learning fun.

“I took German because my stepmom took German in high school,” Laurenti said. 

Mr. Gwin is making a difference of bringing a new language to the students, and lets them experience about culture and places.