Kevin Keough has been McIntosh High School’s German teacher for the past 28 years, starting his career in 1998. This year, Keough has confirmed his retirement.
“There have been a lot of good highlights in my career,” Keough said. “I was the German Teacher of the Year in Georgia in 2003.”
After teaching for over 20 years, Keough recognizes how his teaching has changed.
“My personal teaching style has evolved. The things that are important to me have changed. Sometimes, it’s the students that help you see that, I learn a lot from my students,” Keough said.
Throughout his career, Keough has also noticed how students have generally changed over time.
“When it comes to school, in just a really basic way, I find [kids today to be] more book smart, they are typically more academically active. But not practically. This is what I usually tell people: they’re smarter, but they’re needier. The independence of teenagers has changed a lot over the years. I just find them very, very dependent.”
Keough has already started to think of what he’s going to do after he retires.
“I do plan to go back to Germany, maybe [for] an extended amount of time,” Keough said. “June [is] a glorious month in Germany because the weather is nice [and] it’s still not hot.”
In his previous years of teaching, Keough has taken students on trips to Europe.
“There was a lot of satisfaction taking kids to Europe and coming home and seeing how that trip opened up their eyes to a different way of living,” Keough said.
Throughout teaching German, Keough has learned phrases that describe himself and became phrases he uses often.
“‘Was man in Kompf nicht hat, hat in den Beinen’, which means what you don’t have in your head, you have in your legs. [It] means that if you forget stuff, you have to run back and get it. And that happens to me all the time,” Keough said.
Keough has hopes of his students remembering his class and his teachings after his retirement.
“I hope [my students] have found it an enjoyable class and mostly that they learned something. You hear people talk all the time about how they studied a language for so many years but still can’t speak any of it,” Keough said.
