New Year, New Teachers By: Lydia Kim & Hapse Kabir
As another school year takes place at Downtown Magnets High School, we give a warm welcome to the new teachers in our family of Suns! Ms. Le, the new chemistry and physiology teacher can be found in room 2-219—as we get to know more about our new family integrate—we previously learned that Ms. Le is adventurous, outgoing and her favorite activity outside of school is going to Six Flags, where you can catch her riding Twisted Colossus or Full Throttle!
Prior to being a teacher, Ms. Le was a helpful mentor in her high school and college days as she found herself always obliging to her friends and peers with chemistry work. She explains, “They said that I'm very patient. And you know, I won't give them the answers. I make them work for the answers.” Since then, Ms. Le decided to push for a career in education—“I just find it really rewarding to, you know, help out students.” So far, Ms.Le feels like being a teacher is exciting, “I got to learn a lot of things, especially in the first few days of school to really build communities with students and I think the students here are just very amazing.”
Lastly, Ms. Le crafted a brief message for all her students. She wanted to encourage everyone to keep a positive mindset and abide to two statements that she acts in accordance with: You are what you say to yourself and you are what you think that you are capable of—if you keep repeating that to yourself, you’ll talk positively about your own person you will think and believe it.
Let’s get to know Ms. Moran, another staff member who we will see in the main office this year!Before coming to this school, Ms. Moran was a teacher’s aid for 6 years, however—she gained an interest for accounting and decided to take an office job at DMHS since she was familiarized with the environment and Ms. Moran feels that DMHS has a great community. “I like the community that everybody has here and then the students feel comfortable to come and ask for anything that they need.”A word of advice Ms.Moran left for all the students is to take advantage of the time you have now and listen to the guidance of teachers and adults.
Along with Ms. Moran, we have Ms. Tido, a history teacher located in 3-306. Before getting into details, some things to know about Ms. Tido is that she is full of life who loves gardening—nearly leaving her teaching profession to become a farmer!
Before becoming a full time teacher, Ms. Tido had been subbing for quite a while, so it was a very exciting but difficult transition as she came in half-way through the school year. “But at the end of the day, like coming in this year, now that like that last half a year is behind me. I'm like, actually at a really good spot.” Originally, Ms. Tido had planned to go into a non-profit sector and then work as an occupational therapist, but since she needed a job at the time, her friend told her about a TA position at a school where she began her journey into teaching. “Students and kids in general are just so powerful and, I just really wanted to be around kid energy”A piece of advice Ms. Tido left for her students is to be present in class and enjoy yourselves while you can; she urges students to maintain that work-life balance and learn to ask questions!
Overall, we loved getting to know all the new staff members as we interviewed them since they all had a story and piece of advice to share. Make sure to give a warm welcome to the new family as they settle in this new environment!