‘Champion of Change’ shares his greatest lesson

In this week’s I am HISD, which features district students, graduates, and employees, Austin High School teacher and White House “Champion of Change” Armando Orduña shares what it’s like to advise the Gates Foundation, what Hispanic students need to succeed, and the most important lesson for aspiring teachers.

You began your career at the Houston’s Children Museum as an Outreach Educator. What did you learn about Houston and its students from working in program outreach?

I was shocked about how much I didn’t know about my own city. It was great for me to run across all of these really diverse and exciting cultures that make up the City of Houston. When it came to children, whatever parts of the city I was working in, whatever languages were being spoken, whatever social backgrounds or economics were involved, it was great to see there’s a certain universal truth about them – they love to laugh, they love to play, they enjoy moving and exploring and figuring out how the world works.

It seems that transitioning to a teaching career after working at the museum came naturally to you. What inspired you to teach and become such a strong teacher?

After several years of being the connecting bridge between great educational programming at the museum and children, I wanted to be the one crafting that curriculum and helping to deliver more of it. It’s very gratifying to look at a student and watch them mature, grow, and succeed at different levels over the course of a year, and know that you had a small part to do with that.

I see myself as learning every day. I make mistakes – I make a lot of mistakes. But I’m a strong believer that it’s how you respond to those mistakes that define your character. I try to copy the best things I’ve seen, incorporate them into what I do, and always put my students at the forefront of my planning. Ultimately, everything I do – writing lesson plans, grading papers, having difficult conversations with students and parents – all of this is for the benefit of my students.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation handpicked you to be part of their inaugural National Teacher Advisory Council. What’s it like working with one of the biggest names in development and education in the world today?

I was thrilled to be a part of something like the inaugural teacher advisory council for the Gates Foundation. Thirty-plus teachers in every slice of public education that you can imagine – rural districts, suburban districts, charter schools, traditional public schools – come together. We all get the opportunity to sit in a room with the education department of the foundation, and they roll out the different projects that they are working on, and want real-time teacher input on whether they are going in the right direction. And we get an opportunity to help influence some of these projects. At the end of the day, they have to show us out the doors, because no one wants to stop sharing.

You were one of only 10 educators across the nation chosen to be honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for your work with Hispanic youths. What do you think Hispanic students in Houston need most to succeed?  

Opportunity. I don’t believe this only pertains to Hispanics. Young people need opportunity. Many of the Hispanic students I have worked with over the years have shown so much talent, so much promise, so much enthusiasm, that they only needed the opportunity to show the world what they can do. Sometimes that opportunity gets limited because of transportation, or they have an incredible amount of obligation at home either helping out economically or helping to raise younger siblings, and most of that talent, enthusiasm, and promise gets contained within the walls of their home.

Austin High School, where you now teach, features the only teacher-preparation magnet program in all of Houston. What is the greatest lesson that aspiring educators should learn about being a teacher?

Do not settle for the status quo. Not in the efforts you receive from your students, and not from yourself.  Study the practices of effective, more-experienced teachers. Practice them in your own room.

And don’t be afraid to fail. If you fall on your face, pick yourself back up again. After a horrible day where everything just goes wrong – you are not connecting with the students, they are not connecting with you, the communication is just not there, you’re running into dead-ends everywhere you turn – you go home and you just feel like you want to quit.  And the next day you get up and come back and you are right back at it. That’s picking yourself up as a teacher.

If you know an HISD graduate, student, or employee who should be featured in I am HISD, please email us at info@houstonisd.org.