This teacher spotlight goes to a great teacher Mr. Arambula. Mr. Arambula currently teaches sophomore seminar at Kipp: San Jose Collegiate. He also helps students find summer programs for community service and just helps them out in general. During class time we either have study hall or learn social awareness with mini activities. This usually happen Tuesdays through Fridays. He makes the class interesting by telling students his life stories and how what we learn in class helped him out in the past and or present. The students in his class are interested in the topics he teaches and ask him questions to learn more. Whenever a student is giving him a hard time he does not raise his voice or act out in an unprofessional way. Instead what he does is he calmly asks them to step outside or head to the office depending on the situation. If by this point the student still does not cooperate instead of getting angry he explains the consequences to them if they do not do as they are asked. By this time the student goes outside or to the office.
Mr Arambula was born in Burbank, CA (Los Angeles). He has three siblings and both parents. He lived in mexico from 10 to 16 years old. His favorite movie is Forrest Gump. When I asked him what his favorite restaurant is he replied “ It is called Aporreadillo”. His favorite place he ever went to is Barcelona because he says it is the cleanest pace he ever went to. He says the people there keep their sidewalks free of gum with powerhouses and their is no litter. He also describes the air as cleaner feeling than in other places. He likes to spend his average everyday weekends spending time with his girlfriend, going out to watch movies and going to museums. He is a spanish literature major. The most embarrassing moment of his life was when he was 4 or 5 and his mom had chocolate in a white wrapper. She told him not to eat the chocolate because it is supposed to give a person diarrhea. He then later opened the fridge unwrapped the chocolate and took a small piece to eat. He then wrapped it up and put it back. Later on he had to use the bathroom and ended up being there for the rest of the day. His mom found out and she told his cousins and uncle about it which made it more embarrassing. Mr. Arambula in my opinion is one of the best teachers here at KSJC. He tries to understand students and give them some advice the best he can. He helped me write this article and shares some of his cool stuff with students that show kindness toward him. I do not think there are things that he could do better as a teacher because he is already doing a great job. I he has a really cool beard and we have yet to see what is next for him. - Isaiah Hernandez
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![]() There he was, stranded in a swamp during a thunderstorm for two hours with a gash on his face. As he was in his kayak, he could see lightning hitting the trees surrounding him. Mr. Monagle jokingly stated “, I could not have found a worse day to go.” That wasn't all that happened on that trip. Suddenly, a snake popped out in front of his kayak and was at head height with him. His friends kayaked away as he stated still, silently, allowing the snake to peacefully slither away. One crazy story huh? Imagine being stuck with a snake at head height with you, alone, and you couldn't move until it went away? That must've been an unforgettable experience. Mr.Monagle is the Pre-AP World History teacher here at KSJC. He has been a teacher for three years, but this is his first year with KIPP. When asked what he would be doing if he wasn't a teacher, he stated “, I would be rock climbing or work in a position that has to do with the state government.” During his free time, he likes rock climbing, as stated previously, writing, and playing rock and roll music. Last year he came to teach our Pre-AP World History class for one day and I remember he stated that he was coming from Texas. He is originally from Rhode Island, studied in Baltimore, and taught for 2 years in Texas. I asked if he missed being in Texas and he said that he misses his students, especially during the last weeks. Q: “What is different here at KSJC compared to the school in Texas?” A: “ The teachers were all on the same page, but some didn't really show that they cared. Here I really like that all the teachers have different goals but they all care and want their students to succeed. Its awesome. Its fantastic!” Something he would change about KSJC would be that he would like to have a swim team that he would coach. We began talking about his high school experience and he mentioned that the moment he decided to be a history teacher was when he watched Obama being elected and his teacher broke down why it is important to vote. He realized there is so much to learn and how involved you can be which really interested him. If he wasn't teaching history, he would teach english or music. “I would teach english because I enjoy literature and like to read. I would also consider being a music teacher because I was in an orchestra in high school. I played the trumped for eight years and the french horn for 5.” When talking about music, I asked what his favorite music genre was and he stated rock and roll or hip hop. His favorite band is the Foo Fighters. Here are some final words of advice: Q: “What is one thing you regret from your high school experience?” A: “I did not separate from negative people until my senior year. I really regret that.” Q: “Do you have any advice for students here at KSJC?” A: “Have fun while getting your work done. Hey that rhymed!” -Nayeli Abundis ![]() By: Ashley Melgar You don't really expect high school classes to be fun and laid back, but this class is different. Mr. Arambula’s sophomore seminar class is one of the classes where I feel like I can stay engaged and learn. Some people think that learning is lame but it actually isn't, learning and knowledge is something no one can take away from you. It is something you control, you can choose to pay attention or not but it's all up to you to put the effort. I’m in Mr. Arambula’s 7th period. The class always feels chaotic and loud because the majority of the class are kids that are loud. See that's what Sophomore seminar is all about, we learn life lessons and how to manage being a teenager. In class we all have our own opinions and that's the time we can share what we think and how we feel about the certain topic. Personally my favorite part of the class is when Mr. Arambula tells us about his personal stories. It feels special to think that he trusts us with his personal experiences and stories about his family and friends. He always finds a way to make class fun by making people laugh and try to connect with the students. I feel like i’ll take away a lot in this class, all the life lessons on what we should do and not do and how to maintain a good relationship with anyone. This class will be one of the reasons why I see the world differently and know how to make the right decisions. -Vincent Back Ms.Cohen is the English 10 grade teacher here at KSJC and we students know little about her, so here you go. Before Ms.Cohen was an English teacher she was a Chief Operations Manager at a movie theater. Ms.Cohen was born and raised in Michigan where she also attended North Farmington High School where she played on the volleyball team. Ms.Cohen´s favorite class in high school was AP U.S history. After high school Ms.Cohen went to Michigan State University where she would receive her teaching degree from. Ms.Cohen has been married for 13 years and has two sons, one is 12 and the other is 11 years old. Her favorite color is purple, and she has a two dogs; a chihuahua and an Australian cattle dog. She enjoys listening to folk music and watching her favorite movie; The Princess Bride. Since Ms.Cohen was small she has always wanted to be a teacher. Her reasoning for becoming a teacher was that she loved English and enjoyed working with kids. She has taught for 13 years for grade 6 through 12 and for college. What she is mainly focused on teaching this year is analytical thinking and writing. By Rebecca Lopez Every teacher at KSJC is like a parent to 100+ kids, but there are the few that are actual parents to their own children at home. No parent is the same and each has their own way of doing things. Mr. McCormack is the father of a happy 5 month old girl by the name of Sydney Gabrielle McCormack. Her middle name is a family name that came from her mom's side. To him, being a dad makes him love coming home everyday. Even though she’s just 5 months old, Mr. McCormack has noticed that Sydney is calm like him, but wacky like her mother. She is a total daddy's girl, but like any other protective father, McCormack said that ¨she's joining the nunnery.” All jokes aside, McCormack plans to be a reasonably protective dad. As a dad, he just hopes that his daughter is healthy as she grows. If one cute baby isn’t enough for you, don’t fret! They do hope to have another kid sometime in the future. Ms. Pascal is a first-time mommy to a baby boy named named Ari Pascal. To her, being a mom is amazing and “she wouldn’t trade being a mom for anything.” She feels like being a mother is this thing that she always wanted, but she didn’t want it to interfere with her career. According to Pascal, all of the difficulties with Ari go away when they get to cuddle because it's when they are closest. Nearing the age of 2, Ari is able to recognize words and letters, which makes Ms. Pascal a proud mother. Ms.Pascal stated that she tries “to give Ari his space because [she doesn’t] want him to see how anxious [she] gets.” She hopes that Ari will grow up to be a brave kid. She’s learned that, unless he’s in serious danger, she needs to let him do him so that he learns from his actions. Not too long ago, they went to Gymboree, where she saw Ari afraid for the first time. When he was faced with a set of stairs, his facial expression showed true frustration. After being helped, Ari finally climbed the stairs and slid down the slide with a grin on his face. Above all, Ms. Pascal hopes that her son grows up to be happy, successful, and curious. For the past 2 years, Mr. Low has been a father to his son, Sage Simon Low. According to Low, having a kid changes your life completely; anything that was once simple now becomes a little more challenging because now you are responsible for this other life. The simple things like eating become harder because you have to feed the kid along with feeding yourself. As parents, Mr. Low and his wife realize that there are battles that you have to give up when you have a child. In this case, language is one of the battles they choose not to fight. Even though Sage's mom is Japanese, he doesn't know much of the language. His mother stopped speaking Japanese at the age of 17 and although she speaks Japanese at work, she would rather speak English with Sage at home. One of their challenges with Sage is making sure that he eats the right foods so that he grows up healthy. As his father, Mr. Low focuses on trying to make sure his son is creative. He wants his son to be a creator, not a consumer, and now Sage tells his own stories at the bright age of 2. At the age of 2, Sage is slowly becoming his own person since he is starting to talk all the time and even have mini conversations. Mr. Low is excited to see where life takes him and his son and is ready for the ride.
By Rebecca Lopez Some only know Ms. Barrett as the vice principal at KSJC, but what they don't know is that there is a lot of interesting things about her. Ms. Barrett grew up in a small town of Charlotte, Michigan. Growing up in the countryside, Ms. Barrett was raised on a farm with her younger sister and a close-knit community. Looking back on her high school experience, Ms. Barrett wished she had known how much people consider face value, which is the way that you present yourself as a person. In high school, Ms. Barrett was a shy girl in, but also a very studious teen and ended up being the valedictorian of her graduating class. She was all about her studies, and was very involved with school all around. She played volleyball and softball, was involved in many clubs, and took piano lessons. On top of all of this Ms. Barrett also worked during high school; she began working her sophomore year at the library. As a teen, Ms. Barrett wanted to be a pediatrician, but her plans changed when she entered college. Ms. Barrett went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which wasn't her initial choice. However, since it was only a little over an hour from her hometown, she decided to attend it. Once there, Ms. Barrett decided to major in English and Spanish, then added secondary education after she decided to be a teacher. During college, Ms. Barrett had the opportunity to study abroad in Salamanca, Spain, which was an exciting experience since she just started learning Spanish. In college, her life-changing moment was meeting people from different backgrounds that she wasn't used to and got to experience new sides of life. Another life changing experience was teaching at Detroit high schools, which led to her passion for teaching. However, Ms. Barrett didn’t want to teach just anywhere; she wanted to teach in low-income communities. After college, Ms. Barrett moved to Houston, Texas and worked at a traditional public high school that was extremely diverse. The students at this high school came from 70 different countries and spoke 40 different languages, so you can imagine how much Ms. Barrett learned from this experience. She went on to explain that some students had never even been in a classroom. Because of this, some classes consisted of teaching 17-18 year-old students how to sit in a desk and hold a pencil. After three years at this Houston high school, Ms. Barrett moved to San Jose to teach at KIPP San Jose Collegiate. After working at KIPP for 7 years, Ms. Barrett realized that like anything else, teaching gets easier with time. During her first years teaching, Ms. Barrett would go into work on saturdays and work from 8am-4pm and do the same on sundays at home. As she continued working at KSJC, she noticed it became easier to do. After teaching at KIPP for a while, she realized that there's no other place that would have such passionate teachers and amazing students as well. Ms. Barrett actually created a new class, Topics in American Culture because she wanted to offer another class to students that did not have to be an AP class. With this class, she wants students to get to learn about topics that they are actually interested in. The fact that Ms. Barrett gets to be Vice Principal and teach at the same time is incredible to her since most vice principals don't get to teach. Ms. Barrett is a valued member of our school and we’re excited to see where life takes her.
By Rebecca Lopez Not many students know a lot about Mr. Emrey. Here at KSJC, he is not only the government and economics teacher, but also the 12th grade chair. Mr. Emrey graduated from Sonoma State with a degree in political science and history. When asked why he became a teacher, Mr. Emrey said that he took political science and history classes in college and had no idea what to do with the degrees. So, he just looked at what jobs he could get with his degrees and he came across teaching. He stated,“I don't know if I wanted to become a teacher because I [thought about] how much I hated high school”. However, Mr. Emrey realized that with teaching, he could travel to new places and change traditional teaching by doing it his own way. To Mr. Emrey, traditional teachings are making students just memorize things, but he would rather teach information where students could apply it to real world events. He'd rather have students know how to apply information and explain things. He’d rather give project based things than actual test because he dislikes when students just regurgitate information. Mr. Emrey was actually a teacher in Ukraine, a country in eastern Europe and Kuwait, an extremely small country in the Middle East. On top of being a marvelous teacher, Mr. Emrey served as a marine for 4 years, was in the military police, and was a part of the presidential security unit, specifically the president's helicopter squadron. From his time in the military, Mr. Emrey learned that you can't teach everyone the exact same way because not everyone learns in the same way. When asked about his hopes for his students, Mr. Emrey stated, “I want my students to become fully formed citizens and to be interested in what is happening in the world and do something about what goes on in the world”. However, don’t be fooled; Mr. Emery has a life outside of school too. In fact, he has written a novel called Millennium Stone, which is available on Amazon. The book is a fantasy adventure novel about a young boy who fights dragons, witches, and the undead. Within the next year, the sequel, Millennium Stone: Shards of Darkness will be released. Mr. Emery has a passion for writing and hopes to become a full time author one day. He also teaches kickboxing to adults every other Saturday at Smash Gym from 10:30 to 11:30am. When Mr. Emrey hangs out with his friends, they go to movies, sports events, fighting events, and once in awhile, they'll travel.
By Genesis Aguilar We, KIPP San Jose Collegiate, always want to welcome our new teachers to our campus and want them to feel like part of our community and family. Mr. Page is one of the six new teachers this year. Aubrey Page was born June 6, 1990 in Eastside San Jose as one of two kids of a mixed race couple. Mr. Page went to North Clayton High School, attended Loyola Marymount University, which is located in the Westside of Los Angeles in California. He has one sister who has two kids named Isaiah and Noah who he loves and cares about deeply. Most of us, including myself, forget that our teachers have a life outside school just like we do. On a typical Saturday, Mr. Page wakes up around nine in the morning and goes out to have breakfast at his favorite restaurant, Evergreen Inn & Pub. After having a delicious breakfast, he goes home to watch movies on Netflix and relax. After watching a couple of good movies, he goes out with friends in the afternoon to catch up with them. Not only does he like watching movies on Netflix, but he also enjoys fishing, and playing sports when he has time. After this, he creates the lesson plans for the classes he teaches. Mr. Page teaches both Algebra 1 and AP Statistics at KSJC and loves what he teaches. He motivates his students by telling them that they have to make a difference in the world. He teaches as much as he can to his students in class about what they need to learn and leaves them about 20-40 minutes of homework a night. He encourages his students to ask questions in class and to believe in themselves. If a student would describe Mr. Page, they would describe him as caring and encouraging. He believes education is a civil right and that everyone deserves to be educated no matter where you come from. For Mr.Page, one of the highlights of teaching is to see his students graduate and see them succeed through life. Before teaching at KIPP, Mr. Page taught Geometry, Algebra 2 and AP Calculus in Atlanta. He pushes his students to grow academically and personally in order to have a better future. He describes his classes as colorful, group-oriented, and orderly to keep his students engaged. He feels that everyone is really warm and welcoming in the KSJC community. In five years, Mr. Page sees himself opening a charter school, and in ten years, he sees himself having a network of these schools. Teachers aren’t robots who can work non-stop. They go out, have families, and enjoy doing things that make them happy. So next time you whine to a teacher that “you can’t do the homework because you have a life”, keep in mind that they also have lives, but still manage to get their work done. Fun fact: Mr.Page knows how to do the whip, so next time you see him, why not ask him to show you?
By Indira Ruvalcaba Stop right there! you’re under arrest, for having a sense of style! You have the right to remain fabulous! Teachers with a totally legal sense of fashion:
By Alfredo Topete Have you heard about the “Ice Bucket Challenge”? Whether it has been an effective tool to help with the ALS disease or not, it surely has been a viral sensational hit this summer.
This challenge consist of participants getting fully drenched with a bucket of ice cold water, then posting a video of them in social media, and lastly nominating others to complete the challenge. Anyone who does not complete the challenge has the option of donating money towards ALS or completing both tasks. With thousands of participants in different social media outlets as Facebook and Instagram there is a question that has constantly been asked: does the idea of an “Ice Bucket Challenge” actually help the ALS awareness and association? Gaby Quan, a freshmen at KSJC stated, “The idea is good but people have been doing it for the wrong reasons. This was an event to raise awareness and also money to help people with the disease. Unfortunately, many people have done it for the wrong reasons including not donating money”. The ice bucket challenge has been an effective way to bring attention to the disease, but the main purpose has faded away and forgotten. Senior Juli Bautista, had a different answer towards whether the ice bucket challenge is beneficial. She states, “Yes I definitely do. I feel like although some people are annoyed with the constant videos it has been very effective in spreading awareness. I have seen so many celebrities do the ice bucket challenge and post it online, and still donate at the end. My personal favorite is Charlie Sheen’s shown here: http://youtu.be/qat9gR5nrpM”. The idea that tons of famous celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Will Smith, Eminem and the list continues definitely agrees with the idea that the challenge brings a lot of attention. She continues on how the challenge helps the ALS association by saying “And if anything, money is being donated, research will be conducted, and if all goes well they will find better treatment options and a cure. So its all done with good intentions”. Not only does it help with the main goal of donations but it can influence other people like Juli Bautista to donate. The challenge overall has been a good idea and its awareness has help become one step closer to finding a cure. As one can see, people have different views on the ice bucket challenge but one can conclude that the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has made social media go crazy, raising both money and awareness for the disease. |