More top teachers
Six other recipients of this year’s Teachers Who Inspire awards from Partners in Education include an 18-year veteran teacher, a novice, two duallanguage instructors and two music teachers. They were honored during surprise assemblies or other special events at their schools between May 14 and May 22.
Danielle Catanach-Mohler
First-year teacher Danielle Catanach-Mohler should have known something was brewing in her sixthgrade classroom at Nava Elementary School months ago, when she came across a letter written by her students.
When she was named earlier this month as one seven Teachers Who Inspire for 2018, her kids fessed up: “That letter nominating you? That’s what this is about!”
Catanach-Mohler, a Santa Fe native who graduated from St. Michael’s High School, had worked as a volunteer or teacher assistant at Nava for six years before taking on her own classroom. Watching her students — many of whom she has known since kindergarten — graduate this month was “very emotional,” she said. “I love my job because I love watching the kids grow and seeing the ones who struggle the most still have some success.”
She had planned to be a dentist. Then she began volunteering at Nava through a high school service-learning class in 2012. When she heard the school was looking for an educational assistant, she took some necessary classes at Santa Fe Community College and landed the job.
“I fell in love with the kids,” Catanach-Mohler said.
From her nomination letters: “Danielle begins her day with inspiring words on her dry-erase board that encourage students to do their best and lets them know that she believes that they are more than capable of meeting the challenge.”
Marbel Gonzalez
Growing up in Guatemala, Marbel Gonzalez, a third-grade bilingual teacher at César Chávez Elementary School, still recalls one teacher who inspired her — a man named Raoul who was “very strict but very fair. He is the only teacher I remember. His expectations were very high. I wanted to be like him.”
At first, the odds did not favor her. Her family moved to Santa Fe in September 1986, after she finished sixth grade. Here, she lied about her age and got a full-time job in a restaurant, cooking from 4 p.m. to midnight. School wasn’t a priority, but an insurmountable challenge.
“There were only five of us who spoke Spanish,” she said, “and they put is in the corner all the time so nobody was speaking to us. We didn’t have the bilingual support in schools that we have now.”
That’s one of the reasons she wanted to be a teacher, Gonzalez said.
She dropped out of school but later earned her GED certificate so she could go on to college and begin her teaching career. She has been at César Chávez for 11 years.
“I always wanted to be here on the south side, helping the majority of people who are more comfortable with Spanish,” she said. “For me, this is my home. … I will do anything to help a child.”
From her nomination letter: “She is a nurturing and encouraging teacher who has high expectations for students. … On Saturdays from 9-1 she voluntarily opens up her classroom to any student and tutors them
in reading, writing and math.”
Jeong Young Hong
With just minutes to go until showtime for Ramirez Thomas Elementary School’s World Art, Music and Dance show earlier this month, music teacher Jeong Young Hong scurried about the gymnasium — handing out programs, welcoming parents and triple-checking to make sure every instrument and prop was in the right place.
“She doesn’t give up on us,” fifth-grader Catherine Chavez said as she watched Hong in action.
An Indonesian-born Korean, Hong said she wanted to be a musician, but her parents thought that wasn’t practical, so she studied both music and education at Indiana University. A flute player she knew who had worked for The Santa Fe Opera told her about the city’s beauty. She applied for a job with the local school district and was hired in 2015.
“I love learning about and teaching different cultures, but sometime’s it’s really scary,” she said before the recent show. “I must be precise and concise and accurate.” She and her students also must stay focused, she added.
The show went off without a hitch, with dozens of barefoot students performing an African dance, others taking part in a shadow-dancing exhibition and still others singing a Korean folk song accompanied by ukuleles and xylophones.
The standing-room-only audience cheered. The kids took a bow. So did Hong. And no wonder: The show was precise, concise and focused.
From her nomination letter: “Miss Hong … is a very passionate educator who has made it her focus to connect with our students, families and community. One way she has done this has been to learn and teach songs and music in different languages and cultures.”
Carla Kountoupes
What better time to surprise an orchestra teacher with a Teachers Who Inspire award than at the end of a school concert? After a brief acceptance speech, Carla Kountoupes posed for photographs with her students at El Camino Real Academy, allowing them to share in her glory.
“It feels like a huge honor and privilege to be nominated by a mystery colleague and recognized in this way,” she said later. “I believe my style of teaching is about allowing my students to go through their own discovery process.”
Alyssa Bernal, a rising senior at Santa Fe High who studied under Kountoupes at El Camino Real, said, “Her way really works for me. It was, ‘I’ll show you how to do it but I want you to also do it for yourself.’ … She’s everything a good teacher should be.”
Kountoupes, an Oberlin, Ohio, native, earned college degrees in violin performance and English literature and began teaching in public schools in Tucson after earning her teaching license at Northern Arizona University.
She moved to Santa Fe in 2010 and has taught at El Dorado Community School and El Camino Real Academy since then.
From her nomination letter: “She knows each child can and will succeed. … Many of her students privately experience very difficult and challenging home lives. Yet Carla beautifully transforms her students into members of an advanced orchestra.”
Pamela Price
Pamela Price was still fighting back tears of joy an hour after she learned she had been named one of the Teachers Who Inspire. While her second-graders at Wood Gormley Elementary School played outside during a short recess, she sat in her classroom, reflecting on 18 years of teaching and living in such varied places as Canada, Texas, California and now Santa Fe.
She wanted to be a substitute teacher and travel the world during her time off, but “teaching kind of took a hold of me,” she said, when she started working at Coronation Elementary School in Montreal.
“It took my heart,” she said. “I suddenly found myself, my calling.”
“She’s great with kids,” said second-grader Audriana Wood. “She helps us feel really comfortable at school. … We learn a lot and we look forward to coming to school all the time.”
Price said she expects no tangible reward for her efforts. “I get daily rewards. Some of the stories I can go home and tell my family are rewards.”
Teaching, she said, allows her to “learn something new from my children every day.”
From her nomination letter: “Student success is not an option in her classroom. It is the inevitable outcome of her hard work and hence, her students’ hard work. Her room is a place where the magic can meet the academic and where every student knows that they are safe.”
Generation Next staff writer Hannah Laga-Abram contributed to this profile.
Melissa Romero
Melissa Romero still recalls one educator who truly inspired her: Marcos Martinez, a fourthgrade teacher in her elementary school in Hernández who set her off on a path as in education.
“He asked me to teach a spelling lesson,” she said. “I took the initiative and taught the class, and ever since I have wanted to be a teacher.”
She earned her teaching degree at New Mexico Highlands University and has since worked 14 years as an educator — four at El Camino Real, where she is now the seventh-grade dual language teacher, and the 10 before that at the former Agua Fría Elementary School.
She sees her work as planting seeds in her students’ minds and hearts, “hoping they will blossom and grow.”
She teaches college-preparatory and math leadership classes for middle school students, telling them, “It’s not about waiting for high school to start your career. It’s today where they can find purpose.”
For Romero, the Teachers Who Inspire award “means that I have represented my God, my family of El Camino Real Academy and Santa Fe Public Schools well. … It means I’m making a difference in and outside of the classroom. Just being noticed for that is exciting.”
From her nomination letter: “As long as I’ve known Melissa, her motto is ‘tough love’ — she expects their best, and when a student momentarily forgets this, she reminds them of this important expectation with kindness and an affirmation that she is their biggest fan and supporter.”