With ten years of experience under her belt, Garza teaches Intro to Computing, Graphic Design, and Principles of Audio/Video in both dual-credit and high school courses. She has been working at Jimmy Carter since 2014, when she first started teaching at La Joya, and has come to love her experience as a teacher here.
“I find it very rewarding, we have a good group of students every year. You kind of become like a family.”
She didn’t always want to become a teacher but quickly discovered a fascination for business, which had accumulated since her first business class in high school. While it wasn’t her initial goal, business would become the ideal subject to teach, given her interest in it. a
Her love for our community is also demonstrated through the extracurriculars she hosts. Aside from her accomplishments in the classroom, she hosts UIL prose and poetry, UIL accounting, and FBLA. She considers the work very rewarding.
“It exposes the kids to a lot of opportunities that they would otherwise never see,” she states.
While she just started accounting this year, it has proved to be an interesting endeavor, and she’s excited to see how it evolves over the years. Meanwhile, Garza has been involved in FBLA for the past seven years, taking on the role in 2017 and starting her first competition in 2018.
Garza evaluates her students according to the work they’re responsible for. While her work starts simple, she challenges her students by having their projects get progressively more difficult throughout the semester. Throughout the progression she takes pride in her students’ progress, noting their growth and creativity.
“They really grow. They get more creative, they figure out how to use the applications and succeed, they really just exceed those Adobe applications,” she says.
Garza considers the issues in her work, saying she doesn’t typically encounter problems while teaching.
“Occasionally, we have students who don’t want to do their work,” she reflects. “I calmly tell them, either do it, or I’ll sit next to you, and we can do it together. And that usually changes their attitude; they’d rather do it alone than have me help them.”
