Q: What classes do you teach?
A: I teach Spanish 1 and 4 and I also teach regular English 9.
Q: Since it is your first year at Lake Central, is it your first year ever teaching?
A: No, prior to [Lake Central] I taught for two years at University of South Carolina while I was getting my master’s. I was teaching Spanish at the time.
Q: How did you get into teaching?
A: I had a really good mentor when I was in high school. I had an AP language teacher who was really inspiring. Once I finished my military service and went to college, I was trying to figure out which major I wanted to study. So, I decided that English and Spanish were the best route. When I was working on my master’s degree, I had to teach in order to pay for it. For teaching, I suddenly fell into it. I definitely wanted to teach but I wasn’t sure what or which subject. Deep down, I always wanted to teach English. With Spanish, it just happened.
Q: How many years were you in the military?
A: I was in the active army for six years before I became a teacher.
Q: Do you feel that it will be a year to remember because it is your first here?
A: I absolutely think it will be a year to remember. I did not know what to expect when I first came here, but I did know that it was a place full of good people. There was a lot of good work that could be done here [in the classroom].
Q: What do you seek to accomplish for upcoming years?
A: For every year, I want to take a group of students that I am responsible for and try to ultimately enrich their lives. I want my students to feel passionate about something being in my class. It is a hard thing to do because I remember being a teenager myself being in high school. It is hard to be passionate about this stuff because as a student, it is all you know [not being passionate]. By the time you are a teenager, you are bored with the whole school idea. The most fascinating ideas that you run into, you run into the first time when you are in high school. I am trying to help my students along with that.
Q: What is your favorite part about teaching?
A: My favorite part about teaching is that it is socially responsible work. I think everyone has a civic duty, and it is great that I work with a lot of amazing people.
