Michael Godinez: Internship Profile

Major: Pursuing a BSEd in secondary education and a BS in math

Internship: Student teaching at St. Ignatius College Prep

Coordinating Teacher: Ruston Broussard (MEd’ 12)

Why teaching? “My mom is a teacher, first of all. But I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I was in high school. Then, senior year, I had a great pre-calculus teacher. It was the first time I understood how math worked, and I was tutoring people. My teacher said, ‘I see how you explain things to people. You can do this.’”

One-on-one “We have a department office, and we have an empty classroom to use as a math resource room. Kids come in with homework or whatever. I’ve been taking those meetings, which I really enjoy. I like being able to work one on one with kids.”

Excelsior “There are days when you get up there, and you think you have the greatest lesson plan, and they just look at you like, ‘What are you talking about?’ So you keep trying to do better.”

Drive to succeed “I really enjoy it. The kids are almost too driven—especially the older ones. I tell them not to stress out too much. Everybody is like, ‘How can I do better? Can I come in for help?’”

Tip of the iceberg “Just from seeing my mom, I knew teaching was a lot of work.

She’ll be at school until 7 and then work another couple hours at home. But I never fully realized how much goes into preparing for class. We work through homework problems, because we have to explain it the next day and we don’t want to be solving giant equations on the fly. We’re doing the homework too! I’ve been surprised how much teaching goes beyond just the things you think of—grading, writing tests—there’s so much more.”