Everyone has to take US/AZ government as a senior. Many of these students receive the chance to learn from Las Vegas native, Mrs. Angela Gardner.

With her sarcastic attitude, a bachelor’s in Political science and knowledge of all things government, students receive their knowledge of our nation’s government from a very passionate educator.

But it was not the love of teaching that got her into wanting to teach high school students. In fact, Gardner started college pursuing an accounting major.

When this attempt to earn an accounting major was not as successful as she had hoped, her academic counselor suggested switching to teacher. When her counselor suggested this to her she simply stated, “No, I don’t ever want to be a teacher.”

After declining the teaching major and being told that a political science major could fit best, she took a chance on the political science major. “I was already interested in it,” Gardner states, “I just never thought of majoring in it.”

When posed about what sparked her interest in politics, she responded by saying, ”I think once you are a little bit older and are a taxpayer and there was a point in time where I was making more money, obviously I wasn’t teaching, you start to get more involved in stuff like that because you want to know where your money is going.” She also mentioned her love for her country and for the founding fathers and learning about them.

There then came a time when Gardner wanted to educate people on our government and get those who don’t understand the knowledge they needed to make smart political choices.

The want to teach was sparked by substitute teaching and feeling like she connected with the students. This prompted her to go back to school and get her teaching certificate.

Her first years consisted of teaching seventh graders but when the opportunity to move to Perry High and start fresh and teach seniors, she couldn’t resist. “[Seniors] get it and you understand more. And you’re taxpayers, a lot of you working. But I like opening eyes to people so they see what the government is doing to them.”

Opening eyes is something she loves doing, this is shown as she goes door-to-door during election time getting people registered to vote and informed on who they are voting for.

With her fiery passion for american politics and government, Mrs Gardner is the perfect teacher to learn all you need to know about our country’s government.