As a child, Paulina Flores Hernandez sat in classrooms and envisioned herself standing right where her teachers stood.
“One day, I’m going to be there,” she thought.
That day came much sooner for her than for most prospective teachers thanks to Yelm High School’s careers in education course. Flores Hernandez, a 2021 YHS graduate and current YHS paraeducator for multilingual learners, took the class as a senior to gain both knowledge and experience in the education field.
She spent the first semester learning the principles of teaching, including lesson planning and how to build a classroom community. In the second semester, Flores Hernandez got the opportunity to work with students in one of the district’s schools months before she even received her high school diploma.
She worked in Southworth Elementary that semester, and upon graduation, she earned her first job in education working in the same role she does now at Southworth.
“The comfort of the teachers, whom I had as teachers [while in school], saying, ‘I am more than happy to write a letter of recommendation,’ and hearing words like, ‘You are more than capable,’ and, ‘You will be so successful being in an education role,’ has meant so much to me,” Flores Hernandez said. “I would have never thought I actually would have landed a job in the education field. Hearing, ‘Yes, you can do it,’ and then seeing myself actually in the role like, ‘Yeah, I can do it,’ has been really rewarding.”
Flores Hernandez worked at Southworth for one year before taking the same job at YHS. She felt compelled to work at the high school level to challenge herself to make connections with high school students.
“Kids in high school are harder to form a relationship with, but when you form the relationship as a teacher with a student, it holds a lot more meaning,” she said. “When you work with a 5-year-old or a 6-year-old, you give them a sticker and they’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, thank you. You’re the best,’ but in high school, you have to build your trust with the student.”
Today, Flores Hernandez co-teaches two periods of an English language development class. Over the last four periods of the day, she is either supporting in the classroom or working with students one-on-one depending on their needs in the English language.
“I am either helping them expand their English language development within their class, or I am starting at the beginning and doing very basic sentence starters, lettering, consonant sounds and all of those things,” she said.
Flores Hernandez doesn’t take for granted the ability to have been both a student and a teacher. As a daughter of two immigrant parents from Mexico, she wasn’t certain early on that she’d make it through the first part, let alone achieve the dream she held since she was in elementary school of being a teacher.
“Education in Mexico, it was really hard to achieve. My father was able to graduate from high school. My mother was not. I really thought that, as a minority, I wasn’t going to be able to achieve it,” she said.
Even after entering the careers in education course at YHS, Flores Hernandez still worried about failing. But with the help of her teacher Hillary Hull and her practicum teacher at Southworth, she recognized that not only could she succeed in the class, but she could succeed in the professional world, as well.
“There were some doubts because when it came to learning about lesson material, it was really hard for me to grasp if I was going to understand it 100% and be able to teach it to my kids and have it be a fun experience,” she said. “When I worked in my practicum, my practicum teacher helped me with how to build lessons and how to do lesson objectives. That has really stuck to me because you just keep it broad and very general so the students themselves can go about it in their own way.”
Now in her third year at YHS, Flores Hernandez has begun to build her own teaching style, using bits and pieces from teachers she had, as well as her own personality and flair. She pays close attention to what kind of learner each student is and bases her lessons on that.
“I always make sure every single lesson or whatever I’m working with a student on hits one of the five senses,” she said. “My favorite is tactile learning. I love everything hands-on. If we can get up and move around the room, it helps me know where my kids are learning and where they’re having a harder time.”
Flores Hernandez hopes to one day become a Spanish teacher and is looking into college programs that offer multilingual learner endorsements. She credited the YHS careers in education course for allowing her to achieve her dreams and even expand upon them.
“I would recommend the careers in education program because it really breaks it down for you, and it gets you to realize the importance of being an educator. It’s an amazing course that will really go in-depth and actually give you an answer right then and there if you want to pursue a career in education.”
