Favian Zamudio, the new student teacher under English teacher Mike Espinoza, is helping students in the classroom and encouraging them to challenge themselves while also bettering himself as a teacher.

After student-teaching at Columbia Middle School, Zamudio moved to Branham to work under Espinoza for English 2 Honors. He mainly comes to school on A days to complete his required weekly hours.

As a student teacher, Zamudio works alongside Espinoza in the classroom, helping students like sophomore Aiden Chavez-Moctezuma, a student in his first period class, with assignments, answering questions and offering another perspective when students need assistance.

“Recently, I was off task, and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was meant to be doing,” Chavez-Moctezuma said. “So I asked him what I was supposed to be doing, and he was able to [help me get back on task].”

Though he has only been at Branham since the beginning of this school year, Zamudio has already begun to grow through his experience working with Espinoza. As Zamudio develops his own teaching style, Espinoza has been able to observe how he presents himself and interacts with students. Espinoza believes teaching is partly about developing a persona that allows a teacher to connect with their students.

“It’s like I always tell him — teaching is almost like a performance in some ways, and so how he [wants] to carry himself… in the classroom,” Espinoza said. “I’m excited because I think I can see where [his teaching persona is] starting to go.”

Teaching is not just about delivering lessons for Zamudio, but also about understanding the students. He has learned that educators have to remain patient and recognize that difficult interactions are not always personal, especially when students may be dealing with challenges of their own.

“If I had to pick the most central [piece of advice], it’s just to not take things personally, because sometimes a student might have a bad day, they might say something to you,” Zamudio said. “At the end of the day, you’re here to serve the students. It’s not about you. So… if a lesson goes wrong, it’s not the student’s fault. It’s on me to make sure I deliver appropriately the next time.”

For Zamudio, teaching English is about more than reading and writing. He hopes students can use the skills they develop in class to better understand the world around them by looking at old texts and trying to help them see how it could apply to their own lives.

“Just seeing the present value of it, even if something feels a little older, you can always find some meaning to attach to the present,” Zamudio said. “One of the bigger things is critical thinking, like ‘how do you navigate the world around you?’ Even just reading a difficult text, that unlocks a part of your brain that you might not always use in a math class.” 

Beyond helping students understand English, Zamudio hopes to encourage them to think about their lives beyond high school. While ethnic literature is the focus of the classroom, Zamudio believes conversations about students’ futures can be just as valuable.

“We’re here to talk about reading and literature, fun things,” Zamudio said. “I mean, I could talk all day about it, but that’s not always the student’s interest. So I think really the point [is] just getting them to think about their futures and what they might want to do.”

Zamudio also encourages students to look beyond the surface of what they are reading and writing. Rather than simply completing an assignment, he wants students to challenge themselves and search for deeper meanings and connections within their work, like sophomore Avery Koch, who is in Espinoza’s second period.

“I think Mr. Z is a very smart, very helpful guy,” Koch said. “He walks around the classroom, [and] he asks people if they need help. This year, he’s really [encouraged] me to find deeper meanings in texts, and also in my writing, and to challenge myself.”

Photos by Abigail Marshall/Bear Witness