Ms. Mendoza has worked at Patriot High School since it opened in 2007. She has been in her current classroom since 2004 when Rubidoux High School was being held at our campus (Rubidoux High School was being renovated for a few years and the school was moved to our site until renovations were complete). Ms. Mendoza teaches English, she is the English Department Chairperson, and she also teaches AP Art History.
Having taught that long, we wonder what has inspired Ms. Mendoza to keep teaching all of these years? She loves English and Art History. When she started teaching she loved her students and she loved her subject area as well, so it was kind of both of them that have kept her teaching all these years.
Ms. Mendoza keeps motivated by meeting new students every year. She likes her coworkers and job, and finds great joy in doing it every day. When we ask her what skills are most important to perform her job well, she responds,
“I think to do this job you have to be really good at managing your time. There are a lot of things going on and a lot of balls to juggle in the air. You always have to juggle, so that’s a skill.”
She also adds that knowing how to build a relationship and having good relationships with her students is an important skill as well.
Ms. Mendoza talks of teachers celebrating student success, but for her, success doesn’t necessarily mean getting 100% or the highest score all the time. She celebrates student growth. This is why she uses the “point-less” system of grading. She wants students to get better than when they started. She wants them to learn in the process, and she wants them to read books, always!
We were curious how the point-less system got started. She stated that she and Ms. Cunningham and decided to try this system the year after COVID, after reading a book called Point-Less by Sarah M. Zerwin, a teacher from Colorado. This system measures students’ growth and gets rid of arguing over points to raise a grade. Ms. Mendoza tells us that the system has been successful and there are more English teachers agreeing that the focus of the class should be to measure learning.
She shares with us her teaching philosophy:
“My philosophy is what I preach in class all the time, which is to have a growth mindset which means that you can always do better no matter where you are and that there are people here including me who will help you get better.”
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