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Marta Alonso:
Being in a classroom wasn’t her first career choice, and it had never even crossed her mind. But in Spain, when work comes, you don’t turn it down. After working in a school before moving to the U.S., Marta Alonso realized that maybe teaching students was where she had wanted to be all along.
Originally, Alonso had trained to be a physical therapist, but by the time she ended up in a hospital like she’d always dreamed, she realized it wasn’t a place she felt fulfilled. Her previous job as a teacher that started as a way to keep bills paid turned out to be the job that she preferred and would end up in, eventually ending up in the halls at NS.
Alonso is now teaching Spanish dual immersion as well as bridge, which is an extension of dual immersion. Her culture in Spain is the center of her passion for the language, and being able to help students perfect it has been a rewarding as well as challenging experience. She knows what is challenging for her is hard for her students too, and in the problem solving both parties will grow.
Teaching a language class in particular is a subject that can really push students to work hard, and in that they can find success in a multitude of areas.
“I think it’s something just developmental, when you as a kid, when you are learning something different at the same time, something that’s challenging you, it will improve everything,” Alonso said.
Alonso hopes to help students not just pass a test, but to feel comfortable with spanish, and to be able to practice and use the language in world application for years to come.
Bailee Hansen
She stared at the math problems in frustration, wishing more than anything to just be done and move on. But somewhere in it, Bailee Hansen realized she could do it, and she could do it well. She realized that no problem was unsolvable, and if she could figure it out, any other student could too.
Before becoming a teacher, Hansen was a math tutor, and as she was struggling to get her degree. She was helping students to get their work done as well.
“Basically, I kind of drew from the students, I’m like, they’re thinking they can’t do this, they can’t learn these things, but they can,” Hansen said. “So I can. I just have to find the right people or the right tools.”
Hansen is teaching math as well as earth and space science this year. She knows that core classes aren’t typically a fan favorite among young people, but hopes to help students manage their struggles in a helpful way.
“I’d hope to teach in a way that makes students care about what they are doing, so that even those that are a little less motivated are still learning,” Hansen said. “I look forward to being able to see the improvement in my students.”
Hansen is learning just as much as her students in the classroom, and with every lesson she teaches she finds new teaching methods and things she wants to incorporate the next day.
April Hadley:
After being told there was no time for her and to go read, April Hadley found herself in the corner of an elementary school classroom stuck in a cycle where learning didn’t feel possible.
Hadley had a different learning style than most of her peers growing up, and at some point she had severely fallen behind. Eventually her adoptive parents decided to put her in the special education program.
“My life was so that I was surviving at home and at school,” Hadley said, “because I didn’t have anybody to support me; I didn’t have the skills to help myself.”
Hadley went through the motions of special ED, until one day something clicked in her brain that she could put in the work and leave the program. Hadley was in special ed from sixth grade to ninth grade, until some of her advisors helped encourage her to move on into general education classes.
“I had finally decided, I’m done,” Hadley said. “Everybody makes fun of me in school. I am tired of being made fun of, I am made fun of for being a foster kid, I am made fun of for my religion, and I was made fun of for being weird, I was weird. But I was also made fun of for being a special ed student. So I had talked to my counselor and and was like, ‘I want out,’”
Hadley ended up graduating high school from the National Honor Society, and built a life for herself that wasn’t defined by her past.
Hadley now teaches special education classes because she wants to give students the chance to grow into the best version of themselves, and to help them eventually leave the special ed program if it is what fits best in their lives.
