Reyna Valenzuela, 21, was hired as a Fort Scott High School English Teacher for 2020-21.
She graduated from Pittsburg High School in 2016 and from Pittsburg State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Education in May 2020 and will be starting a Master’s in English Literature in the fall.
“I worked at St. Mary’s Colgan as a YES Tutor for a year and a half, following that I worked for two years on campus as a writing center consultant,” she said. “I also did my internship through PSU at Northeast High School as well as completed my student teaching at Northeast.”
Valenzuela was born in Fort Hood, Texas and has lived in Arma, KS since she was three-years-old.
Her interests include reading, Greek Mythology, British Literature, watching YouTube, and Netflix, her cat, and hanging out with her family.
In addition, she loves softball, baseball, and football.
“So I look forward to cheering students on at their games in the future,” she said.
Becoming a teacher was a realization for Valenzuela.
” I wasn’t always sure what I wanted to do, I switched my dream career a lot when I was younger,” she said. “Eventually though, after watching my mom become a teacher and having an amazing AP Literature teacher during my senior year of high school, I realized that this was the field for me. I wanted to have the chance to make a difference in a student’s life as my mom, Tina Valenzuela, and my AP Literature teacher, Mrs. Johnson, did in mine. Because of this, I’ve worked hard through college to learn as much as I could so I could become a successful educator who makes a difference and helps her students in positive ways.”
“Seeing how much they both loved to teach and how they put everything they had into the classroom was incredibly inspiring and I don’t think I would have come this far without them,” she said.
The best part of teaching for her are the students, she said.
“Getting to know them, watching them grow, and succeed, they are the reason I want to teach so I guess it only makes sense they are the best part of teaching.”
Some of the challenges of teaching is continuing to learn and grow as a teacher “so that you are still providing students the most effective methods of learning is what I would consider one of the greatest challenges in teaching; because as humans we like routine, and so making sure that you’re constantly changing and evolving is something that can be a struggle, but it’s worth it, in the end, to watch students grow,” she said.