How I Became a Teacher Educator

I always wanted to be a teacher and I started (teaching) in a junior high school in Brooklyn that later became an intermediate school and then I was recruited to the bilingual school in the Bronx and from there I was recruited to the Puerto Rican studies department at Brooklyn College and that's when I decided that, and they had started a Teacher Education Bilingual Teacher program at the Department of Puerto Rican Studies because at the time bilingual education meant Puerto Rican students.

That's certainly not the case anymore, but that's why it seemed logical that it be in this Ethnic Studies program. That's when I started teaching prospective teachers and some master's students who were already teachers and taking courses in Ethnic Studies and in teacher preparation sorts of courses that I was teaching and I fell in love with it. I had also loved teaching at the bilingual school and I thought that that's where I would be until a friend of mine said, "Sonia, you have to apply for this job. I think you'll really love it. " And plus he told me, "I'm going to be there and so we can continue being friends there." He was a good buddy of mine. And so that's what we did, and I just loved it and that's when I decided this is what I want to do with my life. I better go get a doctorate so that I can pursue this dream that I have.

And that led to my family moving to Massachusetts, where I studied my doctorate and after I graduated with my doctorate, I worked for a year for the Massachusetts Department of Education where I became a bureaucrat. I was not happy there, but I am very, very grateful that I had that year before I could get back to what I really loved, which was teaching and being a researcher and being a mentor to teachers and prospective teachers. But that year as a bureaucrat really taught me a great deal about advocacy and about the law in education. I was the Lau coordinator, so that really helped me work with family groups, with parent groups in advocating for their rights and that part I loved, but I missed teaching terribly and so I was really glad then to be recruited back to UMass, University of Massachusetts as a faculty member where I spent 26 years before retiring.