Maria Marquez is a Spanish teacher who came to work at Lick-Wilmerding High School at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. She teaches Spanish 3 Honors, Spanish for Heritage Speakers 1 and Spanish for Heritage Speakers 2.
photo by Odin Marin
Marquez was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela and lived there until she was 11 years old, when her family moved to Delaware, both of which she considers to be home. Right after completing college and graduate school at the University of Delaware, she went on to live and work in Spain, Georgia, Thailand and then back to Delaware before moving to the Bay Area.
Marquez has taught students from the ages of middle to high school and plans to continue teaching at a high school after leaving LWHS. She is deeply passionate about teaching Spanish, especially heritage speakers programs and other bilingual school programs where students get as far as learning a whole different subject in Spanish during their academic career. One of her goals is to become the chair of a world language department and start a Spanish heritage speakers program at the next school she teaches at.
One of her most important experiences as a teacher was meeting her mentor, Melissa Perez, while teaching at Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, Georgia. According to Marquez, “Perez has been a huge advocate for Spanish Heritage speaker classes. She was actually one of the first ones to start the program in Georgia. She created the whole curriculum, got it state approved, and is just an amazing person. I took over her role and have been under her wing since.”
The work Marquez did after returning to Delaware also has a special place in her heart. She worked as a sixth-grade teacher at Las Américas ASPIRA Academy in Newark, Delaware, which was also a program that had helped her to go to college and fulfill her dreams. “I always say thank you to ASPIRA, because if it wasn’t for them, I probably wouldn’t be where I am right now,” she said.
Marquez described how her summer school teacher who taught her English in middle school was the reason she knew she wanted to be a teacher. She was at the summer school by choice to get ahead in her English class, and would regularly finish work and extra credit so quickly that she would start teaching her classmates the grammar. According to Marquez, the instructor told her “‘being a teacher is natural for you.’ And I was a sixth grader who wanted to be something like a singer or dancer, but that idea stuck in the back of my mind.”
As shown through her many work experiences abroad, Marquez loves to travel. She is hoping to go to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium this upcoming summer. Some of her other hobbies include being in nature, hiking, reading and going to electronic music concerts.
Marquez is very passionate about social justice issues. “I love having conversations that make me uncomfortable,” she said. “So whether it’s talking about race, sexuality, religion or politics, I’m very passionate about those conversations because they are always evolving.” She really appreciates the affinity spaces at LWHS, because they are not something she had seen before on the East Coast, and they provide a medium for having important conversations and allowing different groups of people to come together and flourish.
When asked what her favorite thing about LWHS was, Marquez confidently answered, saying, “the students. They are so above and beyond, and it even gives me tears in my eyes because they are so amazing.” She also talked about how much she likes the FacStaff at LWHS, and how she loves how “woke” the entire community is.
Marquez is leaving LWHS to go back to the East Coast because she wants to be closer to her family. She will be working at a school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania so that she can be close to those she cares about, but still live her life independently and freely as she loves to do. While she was only here for a year, her presence will be missed in the World Language Department and the entire LWHS community.
