First-Year Teacher Shines, Despite Pandemic
It seems like Jasmine Valadez has been teaching all of her short life. The 20-something year old and first-year art teacher at Johnson Ranch Elementary (JRES) started creating lesson plans when she was in elementary school. Her first student was her younger brother who she watched every day after school and during the summer while their parents were at work.
For Jasmine, it wasn’t really a job. She loved planning art projects and activities for the two of them. It seemed to come naturally. Maybe it’s because her grandmother did the same thing for her a few years earlier. Grandma, in her role as Jasmine’s after-school and summer chaperone, taught her how to sew and the two designed clothes together. That’s likely when Jasmine developed her love for art.
“Since elementary school, art has been a part of my life,” Jasmine remembers. “It connected me to my grandma. Art was a big part of my life growing up.”
Overcoming Obstacles
Jasmine is a product of Comal ISD schools and a graduate of Canyon High. She was in the last leg of college and student teaching at Garden Ridge Elementary last spring when the pandemic hit and closed schools. The quarantine took Jasmine out of the classroom and a move to Remote Learning put the student teaching hours she needed in doubt. So she began creating art projects at home, then recorded and sent them to her cooperating teacher to share with students learning remotely.
“You don’t realize how many materials you want to use until you’re at home and you don’t have those materials,” she says. “Then you think about all of the students who also don’t have those things.”
Jasmine had to be resourceful. Sometimes art was as simple as creating something from a cereal box or using a marker, a highlighter or a pencil to draw something. “It’s showing kids you can make art out of anything. I really liked that part of it.”
Art Becomes Reality
This fall, Jasmine returned to the classroom despite the pandemic. She’s now officially on the Comal ISD payroll, teaching art to students in every grade at JRES. College didn’t prepare her, or any teacher for that matter, for how to teach during a pandemic. Courses like Remote Teaching 101 and Theories of Sanitizing and Spacing probably won’t be added to a college’s education curriculum any time soon. But Jasmine has quickly adapted and says she enjoys working with fellow teachers to learn the best ways to connect with students in a classroom or online at home.
“Jasmine is amazing,” says Suzy Seabolt, principal at JRES. “She remains one of the most positive people on her team. She greets the students every morning with a smile on her face. She makes art fun for the students. My children think she is the best art teacher we have had at JRES and she is doing that as a first year, specials teacher within COVID restraints.”
Jasmine started the year focused on the basics – teaching lines and shapes and having students draw and use watercolors. For remote learners, she again creates videos and slides. This time, Jasmine says, everyone has the materials they need to complete their projects.
“I hope they love art as much as I do,” she says. “Even if they don’t want to be an art teacher, they can learn to love it and respect it. I think art is the unsung hero. It’s in their writing, reading, science and social studies classes. Everything that we learn here is in every other class.
“Art is everywhere. I just want them to appreciate it.”