José Valenzuela
José Valenzuela is a Cohort 6 graduate and first-year teacher of History at TechBoston Academy. He completed his residency at New Mission High School.
A Boston Public Schools graduate, José brings his passion for education to BTR following intensive work on behalf of the Latino community during his years in the BPS and at Williams College. There, he was awarded a research fellowship to explore Latino identity in the United States. He has worked both as a tutor to Latino students in the BPS and with a bilingual summer school program in the district. During his residency, José traveled with his mentor to represent BTR at Annenberg’s Emerging Knowledge Forum in New Orleans.
Inspiration to teach:
My mother said I always liked to “explain things.” My real inspirations were my 8th grade Civics teacher (Mr Fulton) and my college English professor and mentor (Christian Thorne).
About my students:
Last year’s 9th graders @ New Mission were the bravest, smartest, and funniest people I’ve ever met. It was an honor to spend the year with them.
About BTR:
It got me ready.
Favorite Thing in the World To Do:
Discuss about anything to do with sports, but especially regarding the Celtics, the Sox, the NBA, the history of sports, race and gender in sports…you get the idea.
Random thought:
From Malcolm X: “A school is not four walls and a roof. It is whenever you get one person willing to teach and one who’s willing to learn…sometimes we are teachers, sometimes we are students.”
Recently by José
RSS Feed5.24.10 - Mr. V Goes to Washington
This blog is certainly long overdue, but I still thought it was important to write about my experience of going to Washington, D.C.
Back in early April, I was asked by Jesse if I would consider speaking with some aides from the Senate HELP… [more]
3 comments so far
3.23.10 - No More Anecdotes
This isn’t to say that I’m against anecdotes (I’m a full proponent of them), but honestly with so little time between admin. meetings, after school tutoring, MCAS testing, grading, planning, taking BTR grad classes, oh, and teaching of course, it has been hard to… [more]
1 comments so far
1.14.10 - What Teaching In Boston Means
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck Haiti, its effects centered in Port-au-Prince.
On January 13, 2010, I went into work. TechBoston Lower Academy school has an overwhelming Haitian-American population (98% of the students in Sheltered English Instruction… [more]
1 comments so far
11.13.09 - This is Water
I must say that I never quite believed my methods instructor (Neema) when she said, “Your first year after BTR is going to be SO much harder than your residency year.” I thought, “no way, it can’t be. I can focus on my lesson… [more]
4 comments so far
