St. Petronille teacher focuses on relationship building, lessons outside the classroom

Being a physical education teacher is just one of the many hats Christine Giunta-Mayer wears at St. Petronille Catholic School in Glen Ellyn.

If she’s not teaching PE, she may be gardening with students, coaching volleyball, organizing family night events or taking her students out for service opportunities.

“If I’m going to teach, I’m not just going to be a teacher,” Giunta-Mayer said. “Some of the best moments are outside the classroom. Teaching is about having relationships.”

Giunta-Mayer builds her relationships through her positive attitude and extra effort, Ann Brundage, communication and outreach director at St. Petronille, said. And Giunta-Mayer’s students agree, having said that her classes are always fun and engaging.

Eighth grader Grace Sharp said there is something fun about everything she does with Giunta-Mayer. She and her classmate Owen Farrell said they trust Giunta-Mayer because she knows them and relates to them.

“She just knows us better and always finds a role for us,” Farrell said. “She knows how we can have fun and she just understands us better. If we’re sad, she knows how to cheer us up.”

In addition to teaching physical education, Giunta-Mayer has built a flourishing gardening program at St. Petronille that allows students to get their hands dirty and give back to the community. The garden, known in the school as God’s Garden, began as a three-plot effort while Giunta-Mayer was teaching sixth grade religion 10 years ago.

Today, the garden contains 10 plots, and students plant everything from squash and watermelon to cucumbers and flowers. All of the seeds for each year’s harvest are donated by parents, and each student has their own plant to grow. Once the garden is harvested, students bring the produce they’ve grown to the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry, taking some home to their families as well.

“I always try to make lessons out of everything they do and to be an example for them,” Giunta-Mayer said. “I wanted to find a way to teach them how to take care of something so precious that God gave us, and I’m blessed that it’s grown so much.”

Giunta-Mayer said the students do everything from rototilling to watering and harvesting, and during the remote learning days of the pandemic, many students were inspired to plant their own gardens at home.

In addition to the garden effort, Giunta-Mayer also started a program called Chargers Care, which provides service opportunities to students. Brundage said the Chargers Care program has done diaper drives, food drives, clothing drives and more, even participating in a Feed My Starving Children effort.

“She is reinforcing every day why we’re here, and that’s to serve others,” Brundage said. “We are the winners here because she brings so much to the school. There’s a lot she has on her plate to do, and she still makes us a priority.”

For Giunta-Mayer, the reason she teaches at St. Petronille is clear – the school is a family, she said. In fact, her two children attend St. Petronille, and Giunta-Mayer said enrolling them there is the best thing she’s done as a mom.

Giunta-Mayer, who is in her 25th year of teaching, said she wouldn’t be in education if she weren’t at St. Petronille.

“To be a teacher goes far beyond the classroom,” she said. “If every teacher saw that, they would never work a day in their life. I know I haven’t.”