My name is Florencia Sparks. This is my 21st year of teaching, and I love my job!
I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. My dad was an engineer in the automotive industry and when I was 6 years old we moved to the metro-Detroit area, so I grew up in southeastern Michigan. I graduated from Oakland University twice, once with a bachelor's degree and once with a Master of Arts in Teaching. I moved to Las Vegas in 2006 when I was very lucky enough to be offered a teaching job here at Coronado High School, and I've taught here ever since. I'm certified to teach Social Studies and Spanish and in the past I've taught Spanish 1 & 2, Psychology, one quarter of P.E., Student Council, and regular and Honors U.S. Government. Now I'm teaching this awesome Teaching & Training program of study for students who think they might want to be teachers or work in Education or even corporate training someday.
My husband is a teacher too and we are living proof that you can be a teacher and even marry another teacher and still afford to live. Don't let the salary hold you back from becoming an educator. With the new CCSD teacher pay scale, it's actually not that bad. One thing you'll learn about me is that I LOVE kids. We have 3 kids and I love spending time with them and with my nieces and nephews who live in Michigan and Montana (where my husband is from).
I love being a teacher and I hope you'll love my class, even if you decide you don't want to be a teacher. The cool thing about it is, most people experience the school system twice in their lives. Once when they're in school, and once when they have kids. This class will help you understand more about children and their development and about how schools work and why teachers and schools do what they do. So it should be useful to you in the future regardless of whether you want to be a teacher.
I want to get to know each of you when class time allows, so please participate and tell me about yourself.
Oliver (10th grade), Me, Liam (9th grade), Mr. Sparks (Bob Miller teacher), and Lucy (5th grade).
This is in Buenos Aires in front of La Casa Rosada (the pink house), which is Argentina's presidential house of government. Unlike the White House, however, the President doesn't live there, they only work there and have a separate mansion for living in.
Our dog, River. He's a Labrador/Jindo Mix from Retriever Rescue of Las Vegas, 6 years old