FOR A MASS CASUALTY EVENT PUBLIC SAFETY, A3
Gallup Sun VOL 10 | ISSUE 496
www.gallupsun.com
September 27, 2024
Teacher of the Month
Pre-K teacher learns while she teaches By Molly Ann Howell Managing Editor
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ach month, the Sun recognizes a local teacher for his or her determination to help students go above and beyond. Anyone can nominate a teacher by emailing the Sun at gallupsunreporters@gmail.com and providing the teacher’s name, where they teach, and why they should be selected as that month’s winner. This month’s award went to Monique Ma r tinez, who teaches Pre-K at Catherine A. Miller Elementary. PATH TO TEACHING Martinez was born and raised in Gallup. She attended Indian Hills Elementary, JFK Middle School, and Gallup High. After she graduated high school, Martinez pursued a degree in Elementary Education at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. When she graduated from college, Martinez returned to Gallup and took a job teaching fi rst grade at a school that eventually merged with what is now Del Norte Elementary. She taught at Del Norte for 11 years before she decided to go for a change of pace. She accepted a job at Catherine A. Miller Elementary where she split the responsibilities of a Pre-K room with another teacher. She taught in the mornings and the other teacher taught in the afternoon. That job-share opportunity helped Martinez fall in love with teaching Pre-K, and she hasn’t looked back since. She’s been teaching the youngest students (the 3-year-old) group at Catherine A. Miller for nine years now, meaning she’s been teaching for a total of 20 years. When she realized Pre-K was where she belonged, she went back to school and got her master’s in early childhood curriculum and development.
“W
e’re in such a fast paced society, it’s so neat to just sit with a child and see what th ey’re going to make out of some blo cks." - Monique Martin
ez
WHAT THE 3-YEAR-OLDS TEACH HER Martinez fills her days with watching the world through her students’ eyes. They learn about insects, shapes, and colors, and she said watching them interact with the world really inspires her. “I really love this age because I can learn from them, be creative with them, and I think it really sparked a joy back in me because the focus is on the whole child and not a test score,” she said. While she’s teaching the students how to skip and ride a trike, they’re also teaching her. For example, some students found a type of beetle while playing outside recently. Martinez said she grew up calling it a “mustard beetle,” but when she took a photo of it with her phone the internet informed her that it was an elm leaf beetle. Overall, Martinez said the students encourage her to slow down and take a look at the world around her. “We’re in such a fast-paced society, it’s so neat to just sit with a child and see what they’re going to make out of some blocks,” she said. As a teacher of such a young age group, Martinez said she loves seeing the amount of growth each student experiences throughout the year in her classroom. “I feel like I get to see such growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” she said. “They grow from kids who couldn’t say any words at the beginning [of the school year] to students who are greeting me at the end of the year.” She also enjoys when parents or
guardians approach her and excitedly tell her about the new skills their child has shown off. A grandparent of a student with special needs said her grandson was announcing every time he saw the letter “L” in public because he recognized it as a letter in his own name. Another parent told her they were celebrating their son’s vocabulary development because he’d started using the word “delicious.” Lacinda Arviso teaches 4-year-olds in the room next door to Martinez’s, and her son was in Martinez’s classroom a couple years ago. In an interview with the Sun, she complimented Martinez and said her son truly enjoyed having her as a teacher. “He loved it,” she said. “It was just a joy every day to have him in there, and I was just so lucky to be next door to him and hear him and listen to all their songs and experiments.” Another person who sang Martinez’s praises was her assistant teacher Sefina Garcia. The two women have worked together for the past eight years. “I think she’s so awesome to work with,” Garcia said of Martinez. “She gets down to the kids’ level and that’s exactly what these kids need. The kids here are so very blessed to have her as a teacher,
Monique Martinez has been teaching Pre-K at Catherine A. Miller Elementary for nine years now. She said her favorite part about teaching is watching the kids grow and learn new skills. Photo Credit: Jenny Pond and I’m very blessed to have her as my co-teacher. She supports me emotionally just like she supports the kids.” PREPARING THEM FOR THE FUTURE Martinez said the hardest part about teaching is watching the students move on to the next stage of their education. “You really create such a bond that seeing them go off to the next grade makes you feel a sense of happiness but also sadness because you really create a little family here in your classroom,” Martinez explained. “So it’s really hard to see them go.” But ultimately Martinez believes that as long as she’s helped them grow and get ready for the world, she’s done her job right. “At the end of the day, if they leave my room and they’re able to control their little emotions a little more, or be excited about learning still, then I feel like that’s the best part, seeing how they grow and change over time,” she said.
Business Professionals of America prepares high schoolers for their future RAMAH STUDENTS GAIN CONFIDENCE By Molly Ann Howell Managing Editor
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allup-McKinley County Schools provides its students with ample opportunities to prepare themselves for their future careers. From the “Schools Of” program to internships led by community members, GMCS students have a wide selection of experiences that can help further their education and careers. One such program is the Business Professionals of America. BPA is a nationwide organization that helps students develop employable skills that will prepare them for jobs in both the general workforce and the business sector. Ramah High School has a rather large BPA participation rate, as every student who takes the business classes participates in BPA in some shape or form. Shawna Grassie is Ramah’s sponsor for the program, and she said watching the students develop these valuable skills fills her with pride. “At the classroom level and as the sponsor for the chapter, seeing the students put everything together that they’re learning into practice and perfecting their abilities and talents [is my favorite part],” she said. “It’s great to see them take the concepts from the classroom and explore how to implement them in a lot of different capacities, whether it’s just talking to students from other schools within their region or state at different networking events or developing leadership skills that help them inside the school or outside the school and in their communities or on sports team.”
WHAT BPA DOES As a Career and Technical Student Organization, BPA teaches students important skills surrounding their potential future careers. Students can compete in regional, statewide, and even national BPA competitions. These competitions feature a variety of challenges, but a core component involves testing a student’s interview skills. Students participate in a role-playing exercise and are graded based on their performance. Overall, students learn communication skills and technical skills that will give them a step up in the world outside of high school. Several students from Ramah have competed at the national level in the past, and Principal David Gibbons said he’s seen some vast improvement out of those students. “We had some kids go to nationals last year [and] their confidence just went through the roof,” he said. “They participated and competed and saw that kids from a little school can really be successful. There’s really no barrier to what they can do.” Grassie chaperoned last year’s trip to the BPA National Competition, which was held in Chicago. She said seeing the students experience a different part of the country was her favorite part of the trip. “For the students I’ve taken to nationals, my favorite part is seeing the fire in their eyes when they see this whole new world that’s been opened up to them because of their abilities that they work so hard to refine,” she said. “Two of the students I’ve taken to nationals in the past
See BPA, Page A7
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