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Cats, dogs, all animals. Alfonso & Elizabeth González love them. See their dogs. Al majored in Psychology and minored in history at UCLA with visions of becoming a veterinarian. Since his freshman year at UCLA, Al studied a Korean Martial Art, Hwa Rang Do. He began teaching the new members after about three years and found that he loved to teach. That was the career for Al, so upon graduating from UCLA he attended the California State University at Northridge to work towards earning his teaching credential. Dissatisfied with Northridge's lack of support in their graduate program, he learned about the Los Angeles Unified School District's intern program that led to a California Clear Credential and signed up. He was accepted.
The LAUSD's intern program proved to be more valuable than the Cal State Northridge graduate program. The classes were taught by veteran teachers with the emphasis on what works in the classroom with only enough theory as necessary to become a better teacher - one who can teach and not just talk about teaching. Using the latest Whole Language and Thematic approaches, lessons were created in each and every intern class and Al used all those lesson every week in with his elementary students (the Intern classes were taken at the same time Al began his first year of teaching - quite a memorable experience considering the only work he'd done with kids up to that point was teaching martial arts in an afterschool program in an elementary school in Culver City!). While interning he taught 4th and 5th grade modified and full bilingual classes at Main Street Elementary School in the heart of South Central Los Angeles teaching Science, Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, ESL, P.E., Music (okay, music appreciation) and Art. The intern program provided Al with training in all these fields. Training included using Thematic and Whole Language Approaches using Core Literature, in a hands-on, naturalistic approach, with authentic assessment techniques. It was an awesome program! Having been born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents and speaking only Spanish at home helped Al when he had to relearn how to spell and put accent marks in his native language! He picked English up while very young watching Sesame Street and that has been his dominant language ever since but luckily his mother kept his Spanish fluent.
At Main Street Al joined the Local School Leadership Council and the School Site Council, participated in putting on multicultural assemblies, chaired the technology committee, was part of the mathematics and science committees and was responsible for bringing the internet to Main Street and purchasing the new computer lab. In a position of leadership, he participated in the state's evaluation of the school's improvement program and helped rewrite the school's improvement plan. In five years he amassed as much experience as he could in all areas of the elementary school curriculum and attended several workshops and inservices in all the subject areas.
In Washington, Al worked his first year in a replacement contract at Blue Heron Middle school teaching 7th grade Language Arts and Social Studies. In that one year at Blue Heron, Al worked closely with the 7th grade team to create integrative units for the kids and he and his classes pariticipated in two online collaborative projects.
Once his replacement contract was over, Al found the perfect position at Chimacum Middle School. Sixth grade is a great balance between fifth and seventh. CMS is a great place to work and a pretty fantastic district that puts kids first and respects teachers. At Chimacum, Al joined the middle school's building council as 6th grade representative and he is part of his school's technology team as well as the district's technology team. He was also hired as part-time district technician to help the district's technology coordinator, especially as Chimacum Schools grow. Towards the end of his first year at Chimacum, Al taught two classes on "using CD-ROMs in the computer lab with your class", one on "using the Easy Grade Pro 3.06 grading program" for teachers, and two "Beginning Internet" classes. The classes were attended by Chimacum Middle School teachers, Chimacum School district teachers and by teachers from Jefferson County at Chimacum's yearly summer institute. His student's work is published on the WWW, go to his classroom page to see it.
During the summer of 1998, Al was accepted into the University of Washington's Teaching, Learning, and Technology certificate program and he completed 13 units by taking four classes. Go to his TLT web page to see lesson plans created for the courses as well as literary work. Al needs only one more class to receive his certificate and during the Summer of 1999-00, he was accepted into the Grand Canyon University's Master of Arts in Teaching Degree.
The year 1999 has proven to be quite a year for Al González. Al enjoys writing grants to gain money or equipment to fund the addition of more technology equipment in his classroom or to fund exciting science projects. During the summer of '99 he wrote and applied for three separate grants. It was quite frustrating when one after another of those three grants were didn't come through. Al did not let that discourage him though as he found out about two more grants, two big ones that seemed to go very well together. So Al applied for one of the OSPI's Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF) grants, specifically the Learning Space's Right in Class project as well as the Gates Library Foundation's Teacher Leadership Project (TLP) grant. Al wished and prayed and drove his Principal crazy, but finally heard that he was awarded the Right in Class grant. The Right in Space grant will place equipment in Al's classroom and pay for subs to train him. Together it totals over $10,000! If that wasn't enough, Al also got the TLP grant! That grant awards Al $9,000 and more training to teach his students and address the Washington State EALR's using highly accessible technology. A dream come true! More to come...
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