Toni Mullins

I did my student teaching when nothing but Churchill HS existed at the corner of Blanco and West Avenue; the campus was by itself in a field, and I wondered why NEISD had decided to put its fancy new high school out in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, many things have changed, but my love of teaching has not. Over the years, I've taught in different cities and in other countries, but San Antonio has always been the place I come back home to.

• B.A. English/Speech SWTSU
• M.A. English/Early American Literature UTSA

I've been very lucky to have had opportunities to teach English in foreign countries. The part I've liked best has been getting to re-experience being a learner. As teachers, we sometimes form expectations regarding the skill sets we expect our students to bring to class without making allowances for different individual experiences. As a learner in new environments, I was always reminded to take no communication for granted. My first day at work in Algeria, for example, I paid close attention to detailed orientation information given in English and French. I took notes, I asked questions, I set out to find my office ... then I realized all the building signage was in Arabic. The students at the university were delighted to help me!

After I got my B.A., I applied to work at the Defense Language Institute at Lackland. I didn't get that job, but I did find out about teachers being hired by the Iranian Air Force in Tehran. Once the Iranian pilots mastered basic English, they were then sent to the DLI at Lackland to learn about military aircraft. I worked there for two years before the Cultural Revolution of the mid-70s made it too dangerous to remain. After that, I came back home, got married and had a family while teaching for NEISD. I taught freshman and junior English at Lee HS, both regular and Advanced Placement classes. I also worked closely with the ESOL department because I had a personal understanding of and appreciation for the difficulties of living in a country where few people spoke my native language.

Before the pandemic, Cesar Hernandez from I.T. asked me to help with a couple of presentations to the faculty about the Canvas LMS. He interviewed me for a film he was making, and I was a presenter in a Zoom meeting.

• American Federation of Teachers

I enjoy traveling and working with the restoration of old stained glass windows.

After I retired from NEISD in 2011, I was awarded an English Language Fellowship by the Dept. of Defense and Georgetown University, so my husband and I moved to Algeria for a year. I taught American Literature to doctoral candidates at Badji Mokhtar, the only university in Algeria to offer a Ph.D. in American Studies. The purpose of the ELF program is diplomatic in nature, and Fellows are asked to consider themselves as ambassadors of American culture as much as educators. Thereafter, I was offered another opportunity to travel as a Senior English Language Fellow in 2013, so my husband and I moved to Kathmandu, Nepal. This was also an exciting opportunity to travel and learn while teaching at the Mahendra Ratna campus of Tribhuvan University and doing teacher training in villages throughout the Himalayas.

• TEA Secondary-lever Teacher Certification in English, Speech, and E.S.O.L.

• Castroville Conservation Society

• Early American Literature and American novels

• Comp 1
• Comp 2
• World Literature