Lucero Guerrero-Saenz is a CTE Agriculture teacher, this is her first year in education. The Eagle’s Eye interviewed Guerrero to learn about what goals and ideas she has for her students and what she hopes to accomplish for her first year at Akins.
Eagle’s Eye: What’s your occupation at the school?
Lucero Guerrero: I am a CTE agriculture teacher. I teach practicum, floral, advanced floral, horticulture, and principles of Ag.
EE: Have you been teaching before coming to this campus?
LG: This is my first time teaching, and I actually didn’t go to school to teach originally, so I’m brand new to everything this year.
EE: How was your first day here at Akins?
LG: My first day, I will say, was rough. I think only because I was expecting something a lot different. When I went to high school, I think that’s what my image of it was going to be, and things are a lot different. I’m starting to tell, I think because COVID had happened, and the energy is very different. When I was in high school, I would talk a lot. I love to talk. Our teacher would tell us to stop talking. Here, the energy is more please talk, you’re like begging for them to talk to each other. So it’s kind of difficult because the energy just wasn’t what I expected. I think at first, because I’m new to teaching, I took it a little bit personally. I was like “am I not being entertaining enough? Is it my content? Is my day that I planned out, spent so much time planning out not good enough?” So I think I brought myself down a little bit, but I think I just kind of realized, “Well, it’s the first day. Not everybody knows everyone, so we need some time to just kind of get to know each other.” And I realized through- out the day what worked best for me and for them to get them talking, was to go sit down with each group and just start up a conversation and have them spark a conversation for them to continue on their own. So the first day was a little rough for me because it was just brand new, but every day I learn something new, and it gets better.
EE: Do you have any expectations for Akins?
LG: Coming in, yes. I thought I was only going to be teaching one course for all of my periods. But every single period that I have is different, so that was kind of crazy to me. At first, I was like,wow, how am I going to do this? I’m doing it. I’m doing it every day. But it was definitely a challenge that I didn’t realize I was going to be facing. I was honestly just a little scared, because I had a friend who taught elementary school, and she was with AISD, and she didn’t receive assistance. It was her first year. She was having a really rough year, and I was just kind of under the impression that I wasn’t going to get the help that I needed. So I was a little scared about that, but then I learned very quickly throughout my training, before school started, that Akins has a really good community of teachers, and everybody is very supportive and more than willing to help, checking in on me and making sure that I am successful. So I think that there’s such a great, positive energy from all the teachers and staff here and even students.
EE: Are you part of any groups, organizations, or after-school programs?
LG: FFA, I’m a part of that. I will be sponsoring some teams, I think some LDE and CDE teams. But so far, that’s it, other than my practicum (class).
EE: What happens in these programs?
LG: Coming up, we have TCYS, so we have students who are going to be raising animals. Me and Ms. Dorth, we’re going to be in charge of bunnies. We’re going out to a breeder and students that are interested and capable of raising bunnies, we’re going to be working alongside them. Then we’re going to take them out to go show in competition, and hopefully somebody gets some money from that. I think the CDE was Spanish Creed, and interviews they have, different competitions that the students can go out to. I’ll just be working alongside those students and sponsoring them throughout the whole competition.
EE: What do you do in your practicum?
LG: In my practicum, we run Akins Blooms, and that’s going to be an on-site flower shop, that we just started up. Today was the first day the girls started planning, they are taking it like an actual job. We are putting them through an application process, creating resumes, and this week, they’re going to do interviews for positions. We also just started up their social media. We’re going to be selling floral arrangements and also providing some floral arrangements for different events, like homecoming, we’re gonna be selling mums. Lots of fun stuff is gonna go on in there, it’s kind of like a fully blown business run by my students.
EE: Why did you choose to teach this course?
LG: I’ve always been interested in horticulture and floral design, but since my pathway was animal science, I didn’t really get the opportunity to dive into that. But now I have the opportunity to put my whole heart into studying this kind of material and also teaching it, and it’s just fun. I get to connect with my students, with plants, with nature, and just kind of building up different projects with them. So that’s kind of why I love AG, like, everything about it, all the people who are in it. It’s just amazing to be part of such a great group of people.
EE: What are you excited to teach your students?
LG: Honestly, I’m most excited to just learn alongside them and teach floral arrangements. I’m excited to teach the creative aspect of it and see what they come up with, too. Because, you know, you have your own creative mind, but then you see everybody else start working, and then they do things that you wouldn’t even think of doing. So I’m really excited for that.
