Sonya Romero

Hero Teacher Featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Discusses Relationship Building, Strategies to Break the Poverty Cycle and Life after Ellen.

My guest today is Sonya Romero, more commonly know as The Hero Teacher featured on Ellen in March of 2015. Her Ellen interview has more than 8 million views and climbing. Sonya has won several awards for her humanitarian efforts including a Congressional Award. Before Sonya entered the classroom she began her university studies in journalism and communications but went back to obtain a second bachelors in education. In 2004 she completed her masters and is currently working on her PHD. Sonya is Executive Vice President of Albuquerque Federation of Teachers and helps create content for the professional development courses they provide. You can find Sonya in her kindergarten classroom most weekdays at Lee Wallace Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico where her mission is to make every child feel safe. She accomplishes this by meeting each student’s basic needs first by ensuring all children are fed and have comfortable clothes. Once that foundation is established she finds it much easier to build the love of learning into her students. In this interview we talk about how to build those important teacher/student relationships, solutions to help students the are negatively impacted by poverty and how her life has changed after being featured on Ellen. Researching and speaking with Sonya makes me want to work harder and give more. She is such a positive and generous spirit it’s hard not to be transformed just listening to her speak so please enjoy this conversation with Sonya Romero.

Show Notes:

Contact: smith_so@aps.edu

Teachers know how important feedback is. If you enjoyed this interview please dont hesitate to send a note to say thank you and let Sonya know what you learned. Practicing gratitude is a win/win so be good to yourself!

Links:

Sonya’s Ellen Interview
The Pencilsword: On a plate – Comic that succinctly demonstrates the mindset differences children grow up in based on their parents social strata. Social mobility is available in the US but it takes the right mentors.
Poor People Don’t Have Less Self-Control. Poverty Forces Them to Think Short-Term. – Reframes the conversation about the poverty cycle.
Educators Edge Newsletters – PDF downloads with great advice for professional development and new teacher support.
Cincinnati’s Community Learning Centers Website

Diane Ravitch Blog – Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education.
Deborah Meier Blog – Deborah Meier is currently senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education. She has spent more than four decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer, advocate, and ranks among the most acclaimed leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S.
Edweek.org
American Educator

Books:

A Framework for Understanding Poverty 4th Edition – Carefully researched and packed with charts, tables, and questionaires, Framework not only documents the facts of poverty, it provides practical yet compassionate strategies for addressing its impact on people’s lives.
Playing for Keeps: Life and Learning on a Public School Playground – Deborah Meier last book based on close observations on a public school playground. The book shows children at play in a relatively natural, unstructured environment. The reader is virtually there, seeing, listening in, able to appreciate the children’s curiosity, humor, intelligence, and inventiveness.