SAN ANTONIO – The students in seventh-grade science teacher Brenda Fuentes’s class at IDEA South Flores say they feel heard and safe, and genuinely love coming to her class.
”I just feel happy. When I walk into her class I just feel happy,” said Jose Paredes, a seventh grader at IDEA South Flores.
It’s an environment Fuentes says she has worked hard to create, and that it’s her students who motivate her even on the tough days.
”Sometimes they don’t have that outlet at home,” Fuentes said. “So knowing that I am the outlet for them, and just making it a safe space and letting them know they can be themselves, like I am here for them 100% all the time, so that’s what gets me going coming to work every day.”
It’s why she is KSAT’s Educator of the Month.
A shy-by-nature person in front of the camera, she becomes alive in front of her classroom, driving home the importance of science to her students in the real world.
”They don’t know all the aspects of what science opens,” Fuentes said. “Like opportunities like nursing, nutritionist, geologist, those are all science-based courses.”
The school’s staff said they were not surprised Fuentes was nominated.
Abigail Renteria, the assistant principal of instruction at IDEA South Flores, said Fuentes puts 100% into her lesson plans and outside the classroom. She’s usually one of the last teachers to leave.
”We know that this job is not easy,” Renteria said. “So her work goes a long way and it’s greatly appreciated by the staff, by scholars and certainly by parents as well.”
Fuentes’ advice to students studying education, especially to those going into middle school-level teaching, is to let your students know you are there for them.
”Teaching isn’t easy,” Fuentes said. “But kids also know if you are genuine. And they know if you are genuine and you care, they are going to try to care too.”
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