Dr. De Diego has taught at ANHS for 20 years, guiding students through the complexities of world history, economics and AP European History. She prepares her students for the future in her class and in their lives through her unwavering compassion and brilliant mind.
Dr. D was born in Huntington Beach, California, and attended the University of Hawaii. She originally planned to pursue a career as a lawyer due to her fascination with the law. However while studying for her LSAT, she took a side job as a teacher at a small private catholic school and never looked back.
She explained that her greatest inspiration is her mother who she described as strong, scary and full of love to the highest capacity. Dr. D spoke about how her mother had overcome a lot of adversity, and through it all she was able to instill two crucial values into her daughter.
One of these values includes being honest with yourself about your own feelings and capabilities, meaning don’t overload yourself with work you aren’t passionate about when you could be focusing on things you do enjoy and things you are good at.
The second one includes being okay with feeling sorry for yourself sometimes, for a minute, then being able to pick yourself back up and try again.
Dr. D hopes to embody these values not only to honor her mom’s teachings, but also to inspire them in her students.
She relayed that she loves to teach AP European history as it promotes cultural literacy, and economics as it promotes financial literacy. Both of these classes will help her students with different aspects of their lives and that is the main reason for her passion.
When asked if she could talk to any historical figure, Dr. D explained that she would choose Elizabeth I, “She was a master politician, and she was brilliant. She could get people to think things were their idea even when it was hers.”
Dr. D elaborated, explaining that even though technically Elizabeth was not the ruler anyone wanted, she was exactly the ruler that England needed at the time.
Devyn Diggs (12) recalls, “Dr. D brought European History to life. I’ve never had so much fun learning in a classroom, and I’m so happy I got the privilege to do so sophomore year.”
For her Doctorate, Dr. D’s study was about the strategies and effectiveness of online teaching. She truly believed that online classes were a growing field, which proved extremely useful during nationwide online school in 2020.
She discovered that the same personal teaching strategies already used by in-person teachers are actually also the best methods when applied to an online classroom. It is extremely difficult to try and approach something as mechanical as online classes with humanity and authenticity, but that is necessary for learning.
Dr. D advises students to “do everything,” when opportunities present themselves, take them! Try things you think you will dislike, and experience as many things as possible while you can. She believes that if you do this, your worldview will expand and you will be a better person for it.
She also believes in the importance of having faith in every generation. She dislikes the continuous notion of older generations bashing on younger generations. She argues, “kids are always better than you think they are.”
Especially as an educator, to understand that each generation is different because they have experienced life differently and each come with their own unique perspectives is truly wonderful.
Dr. D is a continuous blessing to the ANHS staff, and her influence on students has been priceless. It is certain that she will continue to uplift and inspire whomever she meets, utilizing her passion and intellect to prepare students for not only AP exams, but their entire lives.
