Anna Bui and Israa Malhouni also contributed to this article.
Violeta Archilla, a new Spanish teacher, brings Malden High School experience and a passion for Spanish literature.
Coming from Maine, Archilla commutes about an hour to spread her knowledge to Malden High School students. “Initially I thought…I might consider a position that I don’t love because it’s closer…[but] I decided that having a good team and a school that felt like a better fit was worth the sacrifice,” Archilla expressed.
Archilla was born and raised in Puerto Rico. There, she found her love for literature through a former Spanish teacher. “Just seeing how being able to teach the literature of a place that you are from or even understand a different culture through its literature can be very powerful,” said Archilla.
At their first impression, everyone immediately saw Archilla’s potential to bring great things to the school. She seemed to have amazed everybody during her interview. “She walked out of the room and Ms.Brookes… said, did you offer the job already? ” Principal Chris Mastrangelo declared.
Diane Brookes, the head teacher of the World Language Department, mentioned that when meeting Archilla, she “had a really good feeling about her right from the beginning” and believes that with her experience and personality, she would be able to offer outstanding things to the staff and students.
“She’s very organized, and she’s very experienced, and she’s excited about working here, and she’s a good addition to our team,” Molly Crellin said.
Archilla does her best to get students involved and intrigued in her class. “She connects pretty well. She really does try—there’s Brazilians in my class, and they don’t all fully understand English, so she’ll try learning Portuguese to help them comprehend better…and she tries her best,” claimed freshman Harmonie Ortiz, one of Archilla’s students.
“I like her brain break activities…I think the work is good,” another student, freshman Tenzin Tseten, shared.
Archilla is grateful to teach at a diverse school where people communicate using a variety of languages and can find a benefit to learning and using them. “If I’m going to be teaching somewhere, I really want to be able to go somewhere where people already speak several languages…I feel like it has given me that feeling where it’s more appreciated by the students because they see that they can apply it,” concluded Archllia.
