By Jackelin Gomez-Alcantar
“I feel really welcomed.” said Miranda Powers, new instructional coach at El Diamante, when asked about how she feels in her new home.
She is a teacher on campus who assists and helps other teachers in a variety of ways . You may have seen her in your classroom because a large part of her job is observing in classrooms. Although she is new to El Diamante, she is not new to teaching. Last year she was an English teacher at Fowler High School.
She stated that the change from her previous school to El D is significant, “I feel like I’ve liked moved from Fresno to New York!”
The busy mom of two made some time for me to ask her a few questions to get to know her better.
Tell us about you:
Obvious favorite things would be reading, right? I’m an English teacher. I am an avid runner. I love running. I do marathons, half marathons. I also am a mother. I have two daughters; they are four and two. Something else I used to do a lot of is musical theater. I’m a singer; I did theater growing up, I was the theater assistant at my old high school…musical theater and performing arts are a very big passion of mine..
How did you decide that you wanted to be a teacher?
I knew that I wanted to be a teacher since I was very young… If you would have asked me at four, I would of told you I wanted to be a teacher. If you asked me at 15, I would have said I wanted to be a teacher.
Do you feel like you’ve found your place here?
Yeah totally. So being in this office has been really helpful because obviously teachers come in and out so I’ve really bonded with those teachers. It also helps that they’re English teachers. [But[ There’s just been a lot of teachers who have been so cool and have invited me in and really like made me feel welcome and included me in things and worked with me so I definitely feel like I’ve started to find my people.
If you were an animal, what would you be?
Ok absolute truth. It’s a weird choice because they’re so ugly. I would definitely be an orangutan. Like the big orange ape–100%, they are my favorite animals; I’m very passionate about them. They’re just so beautiful and they’re so sweet and they’re so tender, and they have these really intimate family structures, like they are so sophisticated in the way they care for their young and the way that they function as communities. I just think those ugly things are beautiful. I really do.