The Golden Trident

By Ethan Burress

Have you ever heard of Monsieur Keirns? Most of you have heard of and seen him, but how much do we know about him? Sean Keirns is the sole French teacher at Golden High School. Keirns lived in France for a couple of years studying abroad, and most of his time living in France was spent in Paris. The rest of the time, he lived in the southern regions of France. In France, he’d spent most of his days, outside of studying/ going to university, walking around Paris, and visiting the cultural landmarks of Paris like the Eiffel Tower. In an interview, he mentioned that while in Paris, he admired the beauty and culture of Paris and the sites and wonders of Paris can be enjoyed by many. While living in southern France, Keirns decided he hated Nice and moved from Nice to a small town in southern France. “In college, I studied abroad in Paris, I only lived in France for about six months and then came back every other year.”

Have you ever wondered what else M. Kerins does at Golden outside of being the French teacher? If you don’t know, Keirns has a history of rock climbing and even coaches the GHS rock climbing team. Keirns began his rock climbing hobby around 2008 at Gonzaga University in Spokane Washington. From a young age, he did rock climbing and in his later years, he started to rock climb more frequently. “I grew up enjoying rock climbing, but I never really did it frequently. In college, I started climbing. I took a rock climbing class, which became how I worked out regularly.” 

Rock climbing can be a different way of making friends or even Mentors. There are also many new people and experiences to be made. There have also been) studies that doing an activity like that can ‘clear your mind’ of negatives in your life. “It removes any thoughts you have because you have to force yourself to focus on your hands and feet and the next holes in front of you so you can’t think about anything else except for what you’re doing there right at that moment.” He believes that no matter what situation we are in, rock climbing is a good way for people to focus on only moving onwards.

  If someone from GHS were to ask you, “Who is  Mr. Keirns?” You’d probably say that he’s just a French teacher. For many people learning a different language can be a new experience, it allows them to understand the culture of that language, local customs, and dialects. For others, it allows you to unlock a whole new soul and personality. For many, this allows them to see what lies outside of their native culture and even helps them intellectually. According to studies and research, multilinguistic or bilingual persons tend to have better cognitive focus, better memorization, and many more positives of learning a new language. 

Do you want to try French but don’t feel like you can’t handle it? Don’t worry, Keirns is happy to help. No matter where you’re at in French, he’s more than happy to guide people in the right direction so that way if they travel or even live in a francophone country, you’ll be able to understand French!