Arriola, Hosono, Diaz best of the year at GES

Lorraine T. Arriola, a second grade teacher, has been chosen as the Teacher of the Year for Garapan Elementary School.

“I am very honored that the staff and faculty of GES have faith and confidence in the work that I do. As a teacher, I have experienced countless events and opportunities, which have allowed me to continue to learn! If someone told me that I had a choice to be anything in the world—a respected police officer, a rich lawyer, an even richer doctor—I would still choose to be a teacher. I think that being a teacher allows me to be everything: a police officer, a writer, a scientist, a lawyer, a doctor, and more. All I need is an imagination and my students and we could be anything we wanted to be in our little classroom. My main goal is to provide genuine learning tools that students can take with them long after they leave my classroom. I agree 100 percent that teaching is a form of art that allows me to spend my days with the future.

Rose S. Hosono, a Carolinian Bilingual teacher at GES, has been chosen as the school’s Teacher Aide of the Year.

“It is an honor to have been chosen by my colleagues as Garapan Elementary School’s ‘Teacher Aide of the Year.’ The selection made me realize how much respect, confidence and trust my colleagues have in me and my role as an educator.

“Education is to help develop the knowledge, skills and character of another. Education can be filled with fun learning experiences. I believe that learning does not stop once you have achieved or reached your goals. Whenever you contemplate or think of a solution you are continuing the Educational process. From the time we are conceived we begin learning; Learning never ends! We learn different things and ways to achieve goals, to answer questions, to approach situations and broaden our knowledge. Our job as educators is to guide, sharpen and help our children develop the tools of learning. As educators, we not only teach our students but we also learn! Learning is lifelong.”

Matilde S. Diaz, the librarian for Garapan Elementary School, is this year’s Support Staff of the Year.

“My thoughts and overall feelings regarding education is that, starting to read is the most important aspect of education in order to improve our language acquisition, our communication, and our sharing of information and ideas. My responsibility, as a librarian, is to help kids open books to challenge them, and to help kids learn how to love to read, as well as for entertainment. Books are healthy and wealthy sources of information that gives us new ideas. The wealth of information in books does not come out of the child’s pocketbook. An attractive, well-organized book in the library helps kids want to come in to get books to read. Kids can travel around the world through reading books. Therefore, as a librarian, I will always make sure that the library books are readily available to the students, and I am encouraging students to read more often in order for them to be able to reach their grade level test scores.”