Clear Falls home to regional teacher of the year
A funky, melodic beat greets students as they file into the room for math class. When they are settled, the students seem energetic and invested, perhaps because two of their own are teaching the class today.
A senior named Jasmine recites equations in front of the class, writing numbers and symbols on the board as other students prepare to make sense of it. In the back of the classroom, a man surveys the progress through thin-framed glasses, peering over the coffee mug resting a hair below his nose.
He is Anthony Tran, who was named this year’s Region IV secondary teacher of the year in a region that spans six districts, encompassing the greater Houston metropolitan area. Tran was Clear Falls High School Campus Teacher of the Year twice before being named CCISD Secondary Teacher of the Year for the first time in May.
Although short in stature, the humble hero has emerged as a giant in the district.
Tran teaches AP calculus, college prep math and geometry at Clear Falls High School in League City.
His classes have a familial tone.
There are smiles and laughs. Problem solving is interactive. Here, math might even be fun.
That’s how Tran, 40, likes his classes to run, with the same comfortable feeling that a teacher once showed him when he was an adolescent Vietnamese immigrant in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
Tran was born in Biên Hòa, a city in southern Vietnam, in 1975. When he was 17, his fam-
ily moved to the United States, leaving Tran to adjust to American culture while handicapped by a language barrier.
That led him to struggle with most subjects in school. Even in math, where Tran excelled, his teachers mistook his lack of language comprehension for indifference. Students who failed to understand his culture poked fun at it and his language.
Cecilia Eldridge, his English as a second language teacher, was his salvation.
In addition to his language instruction, Eldridge walked him to classes, tried to deter bullying and even went to Tran’s house to teach English to the family.
Tran would go on to pursue engineering at the University of Texas before leaving the school to try his hand in education before finishing. He started working at an Austin-church where he soon fell in love with teaching. He earned his post-baccalaureate degree in mathematics from St. Edward’s University in Austin in 2005.
He now jokes about the days after he graduated, when his parents didn’t speak to him after his career shift because they had pushed him to be an engineer for so long. He adds that brother and sister majored in biochemistry before ultimately becoming educators, too.
“I didn’t like the career I was into, but they didn’t like what I switched to; so my parents weren’t happy,” he said.
After teaching in Austin, Tran came to the Houston area, joining Clear Falls when it opened in 2010. Tran credits Eldridge for his career success, almost paying homage to her by creating a classroom environment where his students can learn and grow, free from harsh judgment or embarrassment.
“A teacher and student must have a relationship where they feel welcome, or else they won’t put their heart and mind into it,” Tran said. “If they see it as a home, they know they can come to you with real problems. They’ll work with you.”
For Tran, this responsibility extends past the classroom.
“I believe you have to be a role model to lead someone. I’m a strong believer in leading by example,” he said. “Live up to your own expectations. I try to live up to the standards of the school and the district.”
To be a good teacher of anything, Tran believes, communication is critical. He aims to exercise patience and insists that any child’s potential is great. For him, it takes a teacher caring enough to understand an individual, to tap into that person’s abilities.
Tran further credits the school and the district for taking a chance on him and providing the resources to do his job effectively.
“I love it here; they are just so supportive,” he said. “This school is like my family.”
Tran likes to go the extra mile for those he cares about. That’s why he spends summer months to create textbooks and workbooks for students each year — gleaning online resources, writing his own problems and taking suggestions from friends in education.
Tran also hosts study sessions at Clear Falls on Saturdays for students to prepare for AP and college entrance tests for math.
Tran, who lives in Houston with his wife Goretti Nguyen, is content at Clear Falls. “At this moment, I’d love to be a teacher for the rest of my life,” he said.
“If you’re a teacher for a day, you’re a teacher for life,” he added.