Señora Monica León - SPMS

Some teachers don’t just teach a subject, instead they teach you how to learn, how to handle a challenge, and how to believe you’re capable even when something feels hard at first. That’s exactly what my eighth grade Spanish teacher, Señora León, did for me.

I still remember how rigorous her class felt in middle school. It honestly shocked my classmates and I at first, because it was more intense than all of our other middle school classes. But as we talked, it became clear why. The course, Spanish 1/2, was designed as a high school credit class, and Señora León believed it should be treated that way. Looking back, I completely agree. The difficulty wasn’t “too much,” it was purposeful. She explained that because it’s technically a high school-level course that colleges recognize, it makes sense for students to be held to a higher standard, even if it feels out of the ordinary at first. And as a student, I can honestly say her class benefited me. She prepared me for what high school Spanish would look like, even with the ways she set up finals and study guides. When I transitioned to higher levels of Spanish in high school, it felt like I already knew how to study for the class type, which made the transition smoother and took a lot of stress off of my shoulders.

One of the most surprising parts of my interview with her was learning that teaching was not her original plan. She told me she first started working at a preschool because she needed a job as an international student. At the time, she was trying to find a path that would allow her to stay in the United States, and she was told there were two common sponsorship routes. The two routes were either nursing or preschool teaching. She chose teaching, mostly because she knew she didn’t want to work in a hospital. But what began as a practical decision quickly became something she genuinely loved. That shift happened when she realized that, “teachers don’t have to have all the answers,” which is something that changed her entire view of education. Instead, she believes that teachers create a safe environment where students and teachers can learn from each other.

She described how freeing it was to stop seeing teaching as “I have to know everything” and start seeing it as a shared learning experience. She talked about students who came in passionate about things she didn’t know much about, from dinosaurs, science, and other different niche interests. She shared that she would ask her students to bring books so they could read and learn together. That kind of humility and curiosity is rare, and it says so much about her teaching style - for Señora León, learning is a two-way relationship.

When I asked her what she finds most rewarding about teaching, she immediately said it was the connections. She said it means everything to her when students still remember her after they leave her class. She’s also especially grateful that she teaches in the same community where she lives, because she gets to run into former students all the time. Whether she sees students at coffee shops, around town, or at school events, that ongoing familiarity feels priceless. She talked about how, over time, those students become the doctors, accountants, and community members she’ll continue to see, and she loves knowing she played a small part in their story.

One of my favorite stories she shared was from a South Pasadena high school car wash event. She brought her car and watched students working, and she immediately recognized their personalities based on how they approached the task. One student cleaned meticulously and even held others accountable when another student tried to rush through. Señora León laughed because she could tell right away: “This is totally him.” It was such a perfect example of how deeply she pays attention to students as people, not just as names on a roster.

One of Señora León’s proudest moments as a teacher happened during COVID, when she was teaching first grade Spanish dual language online. She explained how challenging it was to keep young students engaged virtually for long stretches, and instead of accepting that learning would automatically “fall behind,” she got creative and intentional. She studied some of her favorite talk show hosts and characters she admired, including Mr. Rogers and Blippi, noticing what made them so engaging and how they connected to kids through a screen. Then she borrowed those strategies: looking directly into the camera to make students feel seen, calling a distracted student by name to gently pull them back in, and resetting energy every 15–20 minutes with music or movement. She said it was exhausting, but she was proud because it worked. She proved to herself that even when everything feels stacked against you, learning can still happen when you build community and put your heart into it.

When I asked Señora León what advice she would give students beyond school, she said something simple but powerful: be honest with yourself. She explained that a lot of young people naturally want to belong and please others, and that’s normal, but it’s also easy to lose yourself. Her advice was to always return to who you truly are, figure out what you’re actually passionate about, and follow that, not a version of you that exists just to make other people happy.

I also asked her about teaching in a world where AI is becoming more common, because it’s something people talk about constantly. Señora León told me she was initially nervous too, but she confronted that fear by bringing AI into the classroom as a learning tool. She described an activity where students wrote poems and counted syllables using rules they learned in class. Then they copied the poem into AI to “check” their work, and the AI gave inconsistent and inaccurate answers, even when students used the exact same poem. At first she panicked because she realized she had built a lesson around something unreliable. But after reflecting, she saw it as an even stronger teaching moment: students learned that they can’t blindly trust AI, and that their own knowledge and foundation matters more than any tool. Her message was clear. “If you're a strong teacher, AI won’t replace you, because teaching is fundamentally human. It’s relationships, feedback, community, and real-time understanding.”

Before we ended, she shared one of the real challenges of teaching: burnout. She said it’s easy to spend unlimited time planning because there’s always another idea, another activity, another opportunity for improvement. But if you don’t set boundaries, you’ll exhaust yourself and start to hate what you once loved. Her advice was to protect your mental health, maintain balance, and know when to step back. She believes that when a teacher is energized, students feel it, and when a teacher is drained, students feel that too.

Señora León makes her class rigorous because she believes students are capable. She is creative because she cares about engagement and meaning and she is grounded because she understands that teachers learn too. Most importantly, she builds community, both inside the classroom and beyond it through relationships that last. Señora León is the kind of teacher who proves that teaching is not about perfection or having every answer, but it’s about creating a space where students feel challenged, supported, and genuinely seen.