Mrs. Anderson is an English teacher at Aliso Niguel who has been teaching here for only three years. Prior to her time at Aliso, she taught at Don Juan Avila Middle School for 18 years and taught in Arizona for four years. This year, Anderson has officially been teaching for 25 years total.
In all of her years of teaching, Anderson has always taught English and she says she loves it more than any other subject when it comes to teaching.
“It’s always been English. I absolutely love teaching reading and writing and speaking and all of that creative fun stuff,” she says.
At Aliso Niguel, Anderson teaches Honors English I and AP Language. When she worked at DJAMS, she taught GATE English, which stands for Gifted and Talented Education. It is a program that students can test into for their very high scores.
She also used to be the advisor for the PAL team at Don Juan. PAL is a team for Peer Assistance Leadership, and they had Mrs. Anderson as their advisor for 17 years.
Mrs. Anderson attended a college in Wisconsin called UW Eau Claire, where she studied to become an English teacher.
With all the years of teaching experience, Anderson knows what is best for her classroom and what steps she must take to ensure her students are successful. For example, in her Honors English I class, she worked with the other teachers to figure out a schedule which would best prioritize the stories that needed to be taught more in depth than others.
Anderson is always looking to prioritize her students and work to help them succeed in high school. She wants to prepare her freshman students for Honors English II, as well as prepare her AP Lang students for their AP exam in the spring.
“Just value one another. We are so fortunate that we have so many kinds of people at this school and in the classroom and not just respecting each other — it goes beyond that. Valuing and appreciating each other just makes it so much better, and it makes learning so much better,” stated Anderson when asked about classroom morals.
She says that she would love for her students to gain an appreciation for reading and writing, but that she all hopes that they leave her class feeling accomplished and feeling loved. She respects her classes and sees them as one big family. She wants her students to feel safe and like they are in a good environment where they can freely express themselves and thrive in their writing.
Anderson loves to emphasize to her students that their voices are important and to keep reading because people’s voices are important and deserve to be heard. At the same time, she wants her students to write, because it is not only important to hear the voices of others, but she believes it is important that her students are heard as well.
She wants to thank her students for how far she has come in the teaching world because without them, she says she would never have the experience or ability to do what she is doing now. Anderson says that her students make coming to school worth it every day, and without the amazing students that she has, teaching would not be as enjoyable.
She wishes for all students to have a good year, and make sure they enjoy what they love.
