Bilingual group selects Oxnard teacher as educator of year Accelerated Learning Resources

Bilingual group selects Oxnard teacher as educator of year

Photo by Chuck Kirman // Buy this photo

Deborah Martinez helps fourth-grader Lynn Abagatnan at Julien Hathaway School in Oxnard. The California Association for Bilingual Educators selected Martinez as its Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Deborah Martinez is neither shy nor falsely humble, but she does express surprise that the California Association for Bilingual Education chose her as its Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Born 33 years ago in Los Angeles, Martinez was raised in Oxnard and now lives in Fillmore. For the past nine years, she has taught fourth-grade students at Julien Hathaway School in the Hueneme School District.

“I’m flattered,” she said. “I didn’t expect it because I haven’t taught very long. Most who get this recognition have taught longer.

“It does affirm that what I do is quality,” she added. “It’s a commitment to what we (teachers) are responsible to do. The more you know your kids, the more you want to work harder.”

Photo by Chuck Kirman

The California Association for Bilingual Educators selected Deborah Martinez of Julien Hathaway School as its Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Martinez, who teaches all topics, including English, math, science and history, said she has taught adults, but fourth-graders are her inspiration.

“I love the fourth grade,” Martinez said. “They’re still at that age where they want recognition and encouragement. They still believe in themselves. Some lose that belief by the sixth and seventh grades.

“The kids — I have 25 students — are not the problem, but teaching them is complex and requires a lot of work. But I love my job, and I’ve always worked a lot of hours since a very, very young age.”

Martinez said 86 percent of the Hathaway student body is Latino and 80 percent speak English as their second language.

“They have to learn it at school,” Martinez said. “That is my strength: how to best help kids learn English as a second language. It’s been my focus since I started teaching.

“I think the challenge is you have to teach them standard English and standard norms of being an American,” she added. “At the same time, you have to validate their differences, find a balance between their own background, while helping them to ‘acculturate,’ or assimilate into America.”

But at the same time, Martinez said she disagrees with some Latino parents who discourage speaking Spanish at home.

Photo by Chuck Kirman

Deborah Martinez helps fourth-grader Jazmin Ruelas at Julien Hathaway School. The California Association for Bilingual Educators selected Martinez as its Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

“Even in my generation, parents discouraged Spanish in the home,” she said. “I think it’s bad, a disadvantage because it’s an opportunity to understand two groups of people, their language and culture.”

She said she appears to be popular with students at Hathaway, but winning popularity contests is not what teaching is about.

“I think initially my students think I’m strict and my standards are too high,” she said. “But then they change their minds. Kids are like sponges; they want to learn and absorb. They think learning is fun.

“I’m available to them after school, and more and more parents open email accounts, even if they don’t have a computer, so they can ask me questions. And kids do perform at a higher level when parents are involved.”

She said she likes to travel and bring her experiences into the classroom. She wants her students to know there is a “world out there, not just Oxnard.”

“They’re mine for six hours, then they have to go home,” Martinez said. “I don’t think I know everything I need to know yet. I’m still learning.”

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