2003.05.09: May 9, 2003: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: The Brownsville Herald: Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden prepares students for next step
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2006.12.18: December 18, 2006: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: The Brownsville Herald: Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden pushes students to excel - and they do :
2003.05.09: May 9, 2003: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: The Brownsville Herald: Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden prepares students for next step
Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden prepares students for next step
After spending two years teaching art in Austin and volunteering in the Peace Corps, he realized he would return to his roots. Though never married, Tegarden boasts of his students as if they were his own. His classroom walls are filled with pictures, blue ribbons, trophies, medals and signs indicating district and state champions of Skills USA-VICA. SkillsUSA-VICA is a national organization serving students and professionals enrolled in training programs in technical, skilled and service occupations. “A child can do anything if you give them the right atmosphere, the right beliefs,” he said. “Once they realize they can do it, they’ll try anything once.”
Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden prepares students for next step
Drafting teacher prepares students for next step
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By Criselda Valdez
The Brownsville Herald
Jack Tegarden never planned on becoming a teacher. Now he realizes that he should have known better because he came from a family that seemed born to teach.
His mother taught for 30 years in Brownsville and his father coached at schools across the Rio Grande Valley. His twin brother and sister are retired teachers.
“But I can’t retire,” said Tegarden, a 60-year-old drafting teacher at Hanna High School. After 19 years of teaching at Hanna, “I’m having too much fun.”
Tegarden, a graduate of Brownsville High School, earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial arts from the former Texas A&I in Kingsville. He also earned a master’s from then Corpus Christi State University. Both universities are now under the Texas A&M system.
When he left Brownsville, he vowed never to return. He had a job as a safety engineer waiting for him after graduating from college. But after a secretary at Texas A&I recommended Tegarden for a teaching job in Austin, he decided to interview for the position.
It was then that he realized “there was nothing else that I was going to do” but teach. And after spending two years teaching art in Austin and volunteering in the Peace Corps, he realized he would return to his roots.
Though never married, Tegarden boasts of his students as if they were his own. His classroom walls are filled with pictures, blue ribbons, trophies, medals and signs indicating district and state champions of Skills USA-VICA. SkillsUSA-VICA is a national organization serving students and professionals enrolled in training programs in technical, skilled and service occupations.
“A child can do anything if you give them the right atmosphere, the right beliefs,” he said. “Once they realize they can do it, they’ll try anything once.”
It is because of those students Tegarden said he does not plan to retire. One student who recently joined Skills USA-VICA might be the national champion Tegarden has waited for. “I just have to see her through,” he said.
Tegarden said the hundreds of students who have taken his class are “truly gifted and talented kids. They are just amazing.”
Tegarden said when his students leave his class, they’re ready to work or go to college. He has a strong belief that students should have a marketable skill when they leave his class. Some his students have already achieved success — one former student interned with Pixar and worked on the cartoon “Monster’s Inc.” Another student’s architectural drawing is becoming a reality — he designed the Isabella Condominiums currently under construction on South Padre Island.
“We must find each personality and what each kid needs to start to strive for excellence,” he said.
“As teachers, we truly make a difference in this world.”
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Headlines: May, 2003; Peace Corps Honduras; Directory of Honduras RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Honduras RPCVs; Secondary Education; Texas
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Story Source: The Brownsville Herald
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Honduras; Secondary Education
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