School:
Illinois Park
Position:
Bilingual Preschool Teacher
Number of Years Teaching:
12
Different Grades that you have taught:
Early Childhood Education (Preschool and Kindergarten), 2nd, 5th, English Specialist teaching from preschool to 6th grade.
How did you know that you wanted to teach early learners:
I consider myself equally both, an early childhood teacher and a language teacher. I have always been fascinated by people who could speak more than one language and specially by how fast early learners absorb the language cues, how they play with them, and how they figure the rules out and incorporate them in their little brains. As and English Language learner myself, I had to dedicate a great deal of effort to acquire a “good” level of proficiency in that language when I was a student, so I personally consider the early learners´ language learning ability to be something very impressive and that was what captured my interest at the early stages, when I decided what to do for a living. My original motivation was to give young learners in Spain the best language model possible and best teaching, to help them learn as much as possible at that early stages, when they still take the learning of it as a game. However, after my first experience with young learners, I fell so deeply in love with their honesty, their innocence, their originality, their imagination, in other words, their uniqueness in being true to themselves and show their best selves, that I reaffirmed then I had made the best decision in my life, that is, to become an early learners´ teacher. And that love remains the same 12 years after…
What are a few “non-negotiables” of your early learning classroom (kinda your educational philosophy)?:
My main goal is for my students to create a special connection with the school institution, a place where they will feel safe, supported, cared for, so that they come every day to school happy and ready to learn. This is important since it is students´ first contact with their education and it will mark their attitude towards learning, and preschool is only the first step of many more in education they have in front of them. I, myself, am a lifelong learning, and would love to pass that love for learning to my students so that they never grow tired of learning in their lives. After all, no matter what it is that you do, you can always do it better, and that implies being ready to learn.
What is something that you want us to know about you as a teacher of young children?:
Likewise with any other professions, commitment is an important key to the way one faces a challenge. And that is precisely how I start each school year, with the excitement of facing a new challenge that will make me grow farther. In fact, each year, each group of student, each little person I am lucky to meet, teaches me something new, that I like to incorporate in my life and specially, in my teaching itself. When working with young minds, it is when you realized the most of how a teacher´s job should be that of a guider, helper and supporter more than a transmitter of knowledge. And as easy as a job like this may seem from the perspective of the outsider, it turns out to be the complete opposite. It requires that you keep up with the latest researches so that your teaching becomes more efficient and makes a greater impact in your students. And that requires to be in contact with academia somehow. In my case, I am currently working on a PhD on Education and looking forwards to keep getting better at what I do.
Anything else you would like your viewers to know?:
I guess something special about me would be my background. I am from Spain and always lived there until I was 25 years old. In Madrid I obtained 2 Bachelors’ Degrees in teaching and started off my career there as an English teacher. It never occurred to me that I will move to USA, and develop my career here, but the program of Early Childhood in U-46 and the community within I work, stole my heart and taught me so much that now I cannot think on doing anything else but cater for my early learner’s.
