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Mrs. Ojeda in Norway

From Mexico, all the way to Austria, the new Algebraic Quantitative Reasoning teacher, Rosa Ojeda, has traveled to a total of 6 different countries and had four different teaching jobs. 

Before moving to Texas, her last job was up north in Connecticut. She had to move during the Pandemic.

“I was working in the biggest city in Connecticut, and the high school has like 1/4 of the students that you have here at Cypress-Fairbanks and yet it was the biggest district over there,” Ojeda said.

Regardless that the schools are very different from one another, she is still trying to overcome those challenges.

“The high school in particular that I worked at was a campus with 3 high schools; each one had about 500 students,” Ojeda said. “And within each high school, they each had their own principal. The one I worked at was a magnet high school which focused on science and we ran by semesters instead of a full school year.” 

“Despite the major size difference, I am excited to work here because this is a big school and it’s the first time I get to see and experience for myself the American high school experience,” Ojeda said. “Because my old school was directed towards academics and didn’t have many extracurriculars like football.”

Ojeda said she will never forget all the various countries she got to experience and the people she met before finally arriving here in Houston.

“Well, Mexico is where I am from,” Ojeda said. “So I spent my whole life there, right up until I got married at 24. I was living there so a lot of my memories are my family, my traditions, food, history, and music. It was interesting to be in other places like Canada where I studied for my master’s in math, and what I remember most is the changing seasons (snow and autumn). It was the first time I experienced it and it was all very beautiful, but very cold though in the winter.”

She said her favorite experiences were from her stay in Europe.

“When I lived in London it was like a gift from God,” Ojeda said. “It was just all so spectacular with all the things you could do there. I learned about art and music, and I went to all sorts of museums of science. It expanded a sort of my vision of the world, which was great because of all the history.”

Her experiences didn’t end there.

“The same happened when we moved to Austria,” Ojeda said. “I lived in Vienna which is considered the capital city of classical music. I love Vienna, it is probably my favorite place because it is a smaller city and it had everything I needed.”

“Now Norway, I would say, just has that natural beauty aesthetic,” Ojeda said. “It’s just the landscaping and it’s fantastic. There is a lot of water, hills, fascinating views that are just breathtaking.”

In the midst of her traveling, Ojeda found a love for teaching kids and helping them.

“I found that teenagers struggle for different reasons,” Ojeda said. “And I thought it was not fair that because they had a bad experience, or they were moving around, or maybe they had some certain learning disabilities, so I liked to put it on myself to help those. That’s why I started to teach high school.”

Seeing different types of kids and having the opportunity to work with them really allowed Ojeda to discover individual methods of teaching kids. And she is ready to learn more from her new school and kids. Be sure to say hi to her in room 1809 and she would be glad to answer any additional questions.