Lanzas never knew in life that she would love teaching kids’ chemistry. She has a similar background to her students and tries to relate with her students throughout the years. “Think about myself to let them know that my background is similar,” Lanzas said.
She first started teaching Edgewood in 1995 and fell in love with chemistry, her family and people were everyone in this school. From whiteboards to teaching online, she has learned every method possible and tries to keep everything fresh and new as time goes by. “The technology has had a huge impact,” Lanzas said.
Although Lanzas has been here for decades, she still believes she has much in her left. After she retires from teaching, she wants to become a nurse and go back to school.
“I always joke when I retire from teaching that I’m going to go be a barber,” Lanzas said.
Sosa is the longest-tenured of the bunch having served for 32 years. Even though Sosa is a grandmother she does not see herself as old, but she loves being a teacher and has no plan to stop.
“I don’t see myself not doing it,” Sosa said.
Her heart since she was a kid was science from all her family being into science. She did not want to be a follower of her family and tried dental school.
“I guess it’s in my family. Everybody is [into] science, and I did go to dental school one year,” Sosa said.
Her motivation is to impact students toward a brighter future. She does not care what background or how her students end up in her classroom. She hopes to get them a promising future in one way or another.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. It’s where you want to go,” Sosa said.
From all her years of teaching, she believes that what you give is what you get. So, she tries to treat people as that saying, “If you respect students, they respect you.”
She loves to see the way her students react and be able to learn biology hands-on. Her favorite lab was dissecting cats back when she was in school but with her students, they loved to dissect frogs.
“[Students] like to dissect frogs a lot. [But] my favorite is dissecting cats,” Sosa said.
She is the toughest of the bunch. Rather than relating to her students she hopes to have her students succeed in life. She sees teaching as a development need for students and hopes that every day a student can leave her classroom with something new.
“[I want to] treat students as people with respect,” Aguirre said.
The relation between her students is understanding and respect. She believes that having a relationship with all of her students will allow them to have something to take with them after high school. “But if I don’t teach you physics, I want to teach you respect,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre found her love in physics because she feels as if it fits her learning style. She loves to show science in a related perspective.
“It’s easier to relate to the real world,” Aguirre said.
In 2015 she went back to school to get her master’s in physics from UTSA.
“Physics is more like hands on, like it is easier to relate to the real world,” Aguirre said.
