In her second year as an English teacher at Champaign Central High School, Alexis Castillo is already making her presence known.
The California native, who moved to Champaign-Urbana in 2017 to study English at the University of Illinois, leads the school’s Instructional Excellence Committee and is involved with the implementation of the school’s AVID program after attending a conference.
“She is always positive and prepared to support teachers and administration,” Principal Joe Williams said. “She has great rapport with her students and takes on extra tasks to keep the ship rolling. With this much energy, I am so excited to see what her future holds.”
I find my work important because … through the study of English, students are able to make connections between the texts we read, the world we live in and themselves. Literature allows us to examine our world and our lives in unique and important ways, which is necessary for growth.
I became a teacher because … I wanted to bring my love for literature and working with young people together. The information I learned in my high school English classes was meaningful to me at the time, and as time progresses, I find new and evolved meaning from what I learned — all that is to say that what I learned stayed with me — became a part of me — my perception of the world and my place in it. When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to devote my life’s work to, spending each day in a classroom alongside young people learning about how to critically engage with their world, the only thing I could see myself doing was teaching English.
My favorite days in the classroom are when … we do anticipatory activities where students have to identify with a series of statements thematically related to our upcoming units. Then, they come up with rationales to defend their positions and this becomes a discussion. The activity allows students to bring their prior and experiential knowledge into the classroom and creates space for students to learn a lot about one another, both of which set a foundation for content specific, and sometimes trickier, conversations.
My most fulfilling moments on the job are when … I see students passionately engaging in discussion and thoughtfully writing — it’s a beautiful thing when students are eager to express themselves, and sometimes all it takes is a text for them to resonate with in some way to make them feel empowered to speak or write on the given topic.
I keep students engaged by … making contemporary connections to the texts we analyze. If students are able to see that what we’re reading about has present day relevance and that it might impact them, they are generally more interested in it.
Something else I’m passionate about is … being an aunt and my family in general. I feel very lucky to love and be loved by such incredible and supportive people. Most of my energy aside from work goes toward nurturing relationships with my loved ones, and this includes my pups, too, of course.
My favorite teacher was … Ms. Pasternack. She was my high school Latin teacher at Albert Einstein Academy. I aspire to be a fraction of the teacher she was.
If I wasn’t a teacher, I would be … a writer.
— ANTHONY ZILIS