What inspired you to pursue teaching?
“I started my career by doing a lot of community service in college related to education. However, my love for teaching was really awakened after working with a program called Jumpstart. Through this program I worked in a preschool classroom and taught students how to read and write their first name.”
“I also taught English in Guatemala and while I was there I realized that I also really loved Latin American culture. I did some traveling around there, went to different places, like Columbia, Costa Rica. Then, when I came back from my travels, I was like, oh, I really want to combine these two loves of mine of teaching, and of Spanish culture, heritage, and language. Ultimately, I decided to pursue my masters in curriculum and instruction at UConn.”
Can you provide a quick description of the current course you are teaching?
“Right now I’m teaching Intro to Spanish and Spanish I. Intro to Spanish is a class for students who have never taken Spanish before and combines not only the language aspect but also targets Spanish culture. Then in Spanish I there is a stronger focus on building grammar and vocab skills.”
What attracted you to Rocky Hill High School?
“I just love the community here, the students are wonderful, the faculty is great, and the administration is so supportive. I just think it’s such a welcoming environment and thought that would be a great fit to be able to do my internship here and then transition to being a teacher.”
What accomplishment are you most proud of?
“I’m really proud of developing my Spanish fluency because I didn’t really grow up speaking it at home. My mom is actually originally from Guatemala, but I mostly learned it in high school and things like that. It kind of took a while for me to be able to say, oh yeah, I can speak Spanish fluently. I’m really happy I was able to grow this much in my abilities to the point where I can now teach Spanish!”
What’s your life motto?
“Live your best, however that looks like.”
What is the most interesting thing that students should know about you?
“I really like to do cross stitch and embroidery.”
What is your favorite aspect about teaching?
“I really look forward to the students’ reactions. I like being able to interact with them when I present the material and seeing what interests them, what engages them, and it’s always really great to have their input whenever I’m teaching. I always really like getting students’ opinions on different things, like in the sixth grade that I’m teaching at the middle school. We’re reading a book and so I ask them, oh, based on the cover of this book, what do you think it’s about? They came up with all these different ideas and I just love hearing how creative they are, and what their thoughts are.”
What is the most challenging aspect of teaching?
“There are never enough hours in the day to get everything done. Therefore, making sure your time management and organization skills are on point is essential to staying on top of everything.”
What is your favorite memory as a teacher?
“Last year, during my student teaching, I taught students a salsa lesson because I’ve been taking salsa lessons. We did a little salsa lesson at the beginning of class and it was just really fun to see everyone up and moving and engaging with the music.”
Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?
“I hope to maybe move up to a leadership type role perhaps like supervisor or maybe even going on to assistant principal or principal. I guess it just depends, but I would probably want to somehow keep Spanish and teaching a part of my career, so we will see.”
(Photo by: Riddhi Sharma)