EL Civics Class meeting with our Minnesota State Representative Bobby Champion - Mar.3, 2009

Hello and Welcome to my Wiki! 

     I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Mary Gebhart.  I've been a teacher at Northside ABE for 3 years.  This is my fourth.  I feel very lucky to be in such a wonderful school!  We have a great teaching staff and wonderful, motivated students!

     This year I will be teaching EL Civics in the mornings and ELL5 in the evening.  This the second year of EL/Civics for me. It is a lot of fun to teach this class!  We read about American History and Government. We take great field trips.  This year we will talk about the presidential election, of course!

     Below you see a picture of our EL/Civics class field trip to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul - last year!  The gentleman on the far right is Minnesota State Representative Willie Dominguez.  He is the representative for North Minneapolis.  We were all so happy that he greeted us that day! (If you are looking for me, I am in the middle, in the back row. (That's because I'm pretty tall - 5"10"!)

     Above, you see a picture of our most recent field trip this year to the same event in St. Paul.  I will try to make a link to a slide show about the trip soon!  In the picture above, we are meeting with Representative Bobby Champion of State House District 58B.  That's the district our school is in!  Students asked him some very good questions and told him about the issues that are important to us - jobs, housing, crime and of course, ABE - Adult Basic Education!  Rep. Champion was very welcoming and gave us a lot of his time!

     Let me tell you a little about my life outside of school.  I have lived in Minneapolis for a long time, but I was born in Iowa.  I am married to a wonderful man, Peter. He is a computer programmer and he makes the best pizza in the world almost every week-end!  We have 3 sons, Ben (21), Michael(19) and Matthew(15.)  They are in college and high school.  We all like to go up to the North Shore of Lake Superior for one week in the summer.  It's a good place to relax.

     I like to garden.  We have a big flower garden and a few vegetables.  I speak French.  I also like to sing and I sing in my church choir. I also like to cook and enjoy getting new recipes from my students!

     I am looking forward to having a great year at Northside!   I am also looking forward to reading about the lives of other people here!  If you are a student, please start a wiki page!

     Also, please leave me a comment!  Thanks!