As Mr. Giedd approaches his first year at Ripon High School, we learn a bit more about him and his adventurous lifestyle. Formerly attending Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, Geidd found his way to small town Ripon landing his first teaching position.

“After meeting everyone here I knew this was the school I wanted to be at,” Giedd said. This being his first year teaching, he is very anxious, but also excited.

Giedd goes into detail about his life-changing trip to the middle east that made him want to teach Spanish specifically.

“I had this experience where I was learning a bit of Arabic and saw how language is the power that unites people. These four boys wanted to play soccer with us, but were too scared because they saw us as loud Americans, and it wasn’t until we started using Arabic that everything changed. They started to get more comfortable. With protests going on less than a mile away, we had this moment of peace and unity because of common language and that’s something I want to be able to pass down to my students,” Giedd said.

With traveling so often, Giedd has had the opportunity to be surrounded by so many different bursts of cultures and languages. From traveling to over ten countries such as Peru, Canada, Israel, Italy, Spain, France, and Morocco, picking a favorite was definitely a hard decision. When it came down to it, Italy was at the top of his list.

“I love the food. If I could just have a diet of coffee and ice cream that would be great,” Giedd said.

He hopes to visit Italy again in the future.

“My favorite part about teaching so far is hearing all the jokes students make, and the funny things people say in class that make it fun,” Giedd said.

If he could share one interesting fact about himself, it would be that his great ancestor would’ve signed the Declaration of Independence, but fell off his horse and became paralyzed and couldn’t make it. Giedd hopes to be able to introduce himself in the world’s top 25 most spoken languages. With 4 down, he’s confident he will be able to do so within his lifetime.