Fe Ortiz-Licon,
Chief of Staff
Who is one educator of color that has stood out to you in your life?
I would say that Mr. Roberto Licon, who’s a fifth-grade teacher at Jenny Oropeza in Long Beach Unified, is one such teacher that comes to mind.
He has been serving the field of education for 25 years. He started teaching at the young age of 23 in downtown Long Beach, which is where he grew up. And he promptly fell in love with the profession because every one of the students that enter his classroom was a reflection of who he was as a child.
What do they do differently as an educator?
In his teaching style, there are things that he’s very intentional about. One of them is learning [deeply about] each one of his students. He makes it a point to understand what are their interests, what do they care for, what drives them, so that when he’s teaching, when he’s actually taking those standards and that content and curriculum, he’s very intentional about aligning it to something that’s going to interest the students. He’s a strong believer in relationship building. He cares for his students and he’s not afraid to show emotion.
I think that Roberto also shows his students that you could be a Latino, you could be highly educated — you could be from this community. You could come from very cultural traditions that say that this is not what a man does. But he debunks so many of those stereotypes in the best way, and shows the students that he cares enough for them, that he cares about their educational outcomes, but also their social-emotional wellbeing, and that who they are will be affirmed in his classroom.
How would you like to appreciate them?
Mr. Roberto Licon, congratulations on your 25th year of service to Long Beach Unified. Your contributions and service to the community have been invaluable to generations of students. I appreciate the way that you bring your authentic self to the classroom, that you bring your cultural assets and respect the cultural assets of students, that you’re always willing to look deeper to marry instructional quality and instructional practices with the lived experiences, the cultural assets, and the linguistic assets that your students bring. You understand that teaching is more than just depositing instructional practices into students. You are there to cultivate the minds of students and to ensure that they have the long-term success that education can do for students because it’s transformative. You’re not only a great ambassador of the education field, but you’re an excellent educator and excellent human being, and an excellent Latino male model. Thank you.
Watch Fe’s Teacher Appreciation Week video here.