Ms. Gomez-Gonzalez pours love into her dual language teaching. photo by Sony Calhoun
TJ’s new Language Arts teacher has had an incredible teaching journey.
Karina Gomez-Gonzalez began working for Thomas Jefferson High School this year, and since then has brought so much light and joy to the community. Originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, she has moved across the American Southwest many times. She worked in construction during her time in Denver before finding her dream teaching job here at TJ. With two degrees and a third in progress, Gomez-Gonzalez has a lot to offer. She is incredibly inspiring, and is looking forward to working with students whose first language is not English and sharing her wisdom with them.
After completing her degree in Secondary Education with a specialization in foreign language (English) in Mexico at Escuela Normal Superior Profr. Jose E. Medrano R, she searched for a local teaching position. In Mexico, the school system chooses a school for their employees and that is the teachers permanent location, unlike the application process here in the United States. When Gomez-Gonzalez received her decision, she was unsatisfied with the location. Instead of accepting the position, she left Mexico and moved to the United States. She had dreamed of moving to Europe, so after moving she worked here in Denver to save for the big move, by working as a painter for a construction company. Though her father encouraged her to pursue teaching in the states, she was worried about complications with her lack of documentation. It was even more of a challenge for her then, because when she moved to the US in 2018 many steps of the documentation process became digital. She quickly became tired of working in construction while seeing people she graduated with move on to bigger things in life, saying, “I was working with paint on my hands every day. I was like, what am I doing here? I’m not even saving the money I was expecting to save because I was paying bills, renting a car, everything.”
She continued that work until a company, Connect US Agency, reached out to her on facebook. The company focuses on helping undocumented individuals get jobs and work visas. At first, she thought it was fake. She didn’t interact with their constant messages, until they sent her one explaining that her aunt had shared her information with the company in an attempt to help her. When she began working with them, the company very quickly found her a job teaching in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she would teach the first grade. She was hesitant at first, due to her lack of experience with elementary level education, but didn’t want to turn down the offer because it was a great opportunity that she wasn’t sure she would receive again.
After receiving help from this company to earn her J1 Visa, a kind of visa special for those who are working or in school, she started at that school in October. Reflecting on her first year working with elementary students, she believes she got the short end of the stick. Being new to citizenship and the country, as well as never having worked with kids this young before and starting late in the year, she faced many challenges. “I cried a lot. I felt so embarrassed during that year, so little. So ignorant. I even doubted my passion for teaching. I thought, do I really deserve this? Why did they give me this job? That was my mindset during that whole first year,” she explained.
Covid hit during the end of that year, and while things didn’t go as the new teacher had planned, she was determined to make the second year better. So, she began learning again. She taught herself how to work with younger audiences, and how to teach in multiple languages to meet the needs of students. Her second year went much better, and it sparked her love for dual language programs. Gomez-Gonzalez worked at Wherry Elementary School for five years, her last two being in fifth grade. Luckily, that year, she taught the class she worked with her first year there, which was an incredibly rewarding experience for her. She said, “I started with them and I finished with them. So for that first year that I couldn’t do much for those little kids, I feel like I did a lot for them in their last year.”
Gomez-Gonzalez was successful in many ways during that last year, both inside the classroom and in her own life, as she earned a Master’s degree in Educational Management and Development that year, from Escuela Normal Superior Profr. Jose E. Medrano R. Following that success, she needed to find a school district that would sponsor her visa after her original J1 expired. Denver Public Schools helps provide many resources for those who need assistance with visas, so she applied for a position at Montbello High School. She was quickly accepted, and needed to make the choice of uprooting her life once again. She explained, “I had to make one of the most difficult decisions in my life. By that time, I was already married, my husband had a work visa as well, so he had to stay over there [in Albuquerque] with our dogs. So right now we’re living our marriage in a distance, which has been one of the most difficult parts of these two years here.”
While she was at Montbello, she found herself unhappy with the position she was in, saying, “It was not for me. I started looking for a different position. I felt like, If I’m gonna be struggling, being very far from the people I love, at least I have to be in a place where I can feel that I’m doing what I like to do, which is teaching. Teaching my students, using my strategies, using what I know that it works.” In search of a community where she would have more autonomy, she reached out to DPS. The district was able to find her a position teaching language arts in Spanish here at TJ. After interviewing, Gomez-Gonzalez felt like this was the perfect school for her.
She is incredibly grateful that she found this opportunity at TJ, and believes that all of the trials and tribulations that she has experienced have made her who she is, and made her a better teacher. She is immensely excited to be able to provide resources and mentorship to young immigrant students, as she once was. “They’re learning how to survive in this country. They’re learning a second language and they’re trying. This is me too. So every time I see them, I see myself in them.,” she explained. Being able to understand her students in this unique way makes her feel all the more passionate about what she does. She is readily able to empathize with these students whose first language is not English, and being a language arts teacher, thrives on helping them understand and be just as prepared as native english speaking students. She commented, “It costs us more than what we expect. For a native, learning something can be very quick. But for us, sometimes it costs us triple the time, because we have to reread and we have to check the writing again.” More than anything, she wishes to be a role model for her students, and for them to pursue their dreams. “How I see my students and how passionate I am about them is so that they can realize that if I did this, if I had these opportunities, you guys can achieve more than what I have achieved in life. Because you guys are already here, you are younger than me. You guys are learning the language younger than me.”
Gomez-Gonzalez is thrilled to be working at TJ, and is already very active within the community, helping run the Hispanic Latino Club. On top of all she does for her new school, she will be graduating in June with a doctorate in General Education. This young teacher is an excellent role model for the student body, and she is sure to accomplish so much during her time at TJ.
