I think that pre-k really works

"I take the time to do 20 home visits the first two weeks of school. It is a lot of work, but I invest the time because I want to build very strong relationships with the parents."

Montserrat Garibay teaches a bilingual pre-kindergarten class at Lucy Read Pre-kindergarten Demonstration School in Austin ISD. She serves on the executive board of Education Austin. Read more about her in the winter 2011 Advocate.

http://tsta.org/sites/default/files/11winterAdvocate-web.pdf

What I love about teaching is I love children, and I love giving them the information that I have as an educator, but most importantly, I love touching the future and helping to build in them a lifelong love for learning and for promoting their society. Through TSTA, we have a voice that allows us to band together and to work together and to promote that education that we know will help ensure the safety and the quality of our future.

Teaching for me has always been a joy. It’s always been really fun, as stressful as it gets. It’s a valuable role in our society.

Ian Grayson teaches U.S. history and economics at Austin High School and is active in Education Austin. "Teaching is the family business. My parents were teachers; my mother’s sisters, most of them are teachers; my dad’s father was a teacher. Someone asks you a question, you don’t answer it, you start teaching them how to learn the answer themselves, you know?" Read more about Ian in the winter 2011 Advocate.

Beth Huckabee’s first few weeks of teaching were a crash course on the importance of class size limits.

“It was a disaster!” Huckabee, this year’s Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year and TSTA Ermalee Boice Instructional Advocacy Award winner, said.

“I waltzed into a situation with 40 percent repeating students. I had six classes, five preps and a seventh period health class of 42 students,” she said. “I went home crying the first six weeks.”

As a high school and college student, she had the opportunity to help teach her peers, and she enjoyed it so much that it shaped her career path, but this was very different. “Failure was a new experience and an excellent tutor," Huckabee said. "I learned that knowing the material was not enough. I needed to know my students."

Fortunately, her principal, Ramiro De La Paz, recognized the futility of trying to teach 42 students; he divided her health class in half and taught the second class himself.

“Suddenly instead of ending the day frustrated, I was able to teach. I would never have gone back that second year if it hadn’t been for him,” Huckabee said.

With her classes finally at a manageable level, Huckabee gave herself an assignment: to learn something about every student. “My goal became to visit with each student every two weeks about something that really interested them. I also incorporated real world examples that affected them into my presentations.”

Read More in the Advocate

What I really like about TSTA is the ability to travel around and actually get to see what TSTA and NEA have to offer outside of just the Student Program bubble and outside of the really tiny part of TSTA that usually everyone in the schools sees. (They don't usually) see stuff like the House of Delegates or our Connections Conferences or the Representative Assembly. Those are opportunities that I think that, once students get to see those, they are truly amazed at how big this organization is, and how much people put their efforts and time into it, and how much they really care and try to be there and support you.

I joined TSTA to better myself, learn leadership skills, and also help fellow teachers and ESPs throughout Texas and my local.

I am the public relations officer for Harlingen (TSTA), and I am the head custodian at Dishman Elementary. I joined TSTA to better myself, learn leadership skills and also help fellow teachers and ESPs throughout Texas and my local. I like where I work because it's a learning experience, and I see kids doing stuff I used to do when I was in school, and I'm like, 'Man, that's not good. Don't do that.' Been there, done that. (I can be) a positive role model for the kids.

This is my first year in Abilene. Previous to this, I was working in Austin, and I was a member of Education Austin. My mother has gotten older and needs help, needs taking care of, so I left Austin and moved to Abilene. When I was hired, I was told I was being hired with stimulus money and that the stimulus money was going to come to an end but that other positions were probably going to become available, and I could be able to get into one of those positions. I don't think the administration had any idea what was coming down the pike, and so here it is nine months later, 10 months later, and I'm being laid off or nonrenewal of contract, because I'm technically a probationary teacher, since this is my first year with Abilene ISD. You ask me what I'm going to do next year. I have no idea. I have no idea. I've been teaching for 16 years, and I just really don't know.

I've been the top recruiter for the past five years. I love recruiting. Whenever I go to stores or anywhere around, I meet somebody and then ask them, 'Do you belong to the Association of Brownsville Educators?' They tell me, 'No, what is that?' Then I tell them the reason is you never know if somebody will try to get you in trouble, like parents, co-workers or even students nowdays. That's how I recruit people, by going to different places. During the summer that's what I do, recruit, and I recruit during school time, too -- but after school hours.