Mrs. Alicia Mata was awarded the 2024-2025 Hazelwood East High School Teacher of the Year. Her positive contributions to the building, and her excellence in teaching are only a few reasons she earned this honor.
Mrs. Mata’s philosophy of teaching is to build on what her students already know, and improve those skills. From this, she hopes students make a successful transition to adulthood.
“Students are not blank slates. They come into my classroom with preconceived notions of who they are as a both student and a human being, positive and negative”, Mrs. Mata says.
Mrs. Mata’s students appreciate her hard work and constant encouragement during challenging learning.
“ She does a lot of one-on-one conferences with us”, said Janiya Fultz, sophomore at EHS. Janiya says that the conferences feel individualized to her specific needs and helps her learn the material.
English class can potentially be a challenge for disinterested students, but Mrs. Mata keeps her students engaged by mimicking the addictive effects of social media.
“I am a naturally active and lively person. I try to keep my students engaged through wild gesticulations, strange accents, and phrases in foreign languages”, she explains. “If I maintain the same tone and pace through an entire lesson, the content will be metaphorically “scrolled” past.”
Learning English is challenging, but so is teaching it, especially in an EOC course like English 2. Mrs. Mata works through this challenge by building reading and writing stamina in her students.
“The reward, however, is breaking the process down into manageable chunks and having my students take a step back to view their own progress. I love seeing the proud look on their faces when I announce, “Look at that! That’s half an essay written. YOU did that!” or “Close the book and see how far you’ve read. YOU did that.”
It is clear that Mrs. Mata fits the Teacher of the Year description. She tells new teachers, “Never be afraid to ask for help, never be afraid to borrow lesson plans or ideas from other teachers, and never be afraid to vent to your mentors. You are not in this alone. Teaching is a team effort”.
