Becoming Mr. V: A First-Generation Student Launches His Teaching Career

Miguel Velasquez '23, MA '24, a bilingual history major who was Adelphi's 2021 Newman Civic Fellowship winner, has already secured a teaching position-in the same school where he held his Adelphi internship.

Miguel Velasquez '23, MA'24, knew from the day he set foot on the Adelphi campus that he wanted to become a teacher.

He got there a year sooner than many.

As the bilingual child of parents from El Salvador and Honduras, Velasquez got a BA in history from Adelphi in 2023 and his master's degree in May 2024 through Adelphi's Scholar Teacher Education Program (STEP) in the Ruth S. Ammon College of Education and Health Sciences. This accelerated five-year teaching degree helped put Velasquez on a path to a job in a classroom right out of college, saving his family a year of tuition, and allowing Velasquez to become Mr. V-as his students call him-one year sooner.

English as a New Language

As a first-generation college student and first-generation American, Velasquez is committed to breaking down educational barriers for students with similar backgrounds.

He begins his teaching career in September as a social studies teacher at Kennedy High School in the Long Island town of Belmore, New York, teaching global and U.S. history along with economics. He'll be working with students of various backgrounds and abilities, including a group of ENL (English as a New Language) students. "The district where I now teach has a growing ENL student population. I can use my Castilian Spanish, which is formal Spanish, and my urban Spanish, which is a more casual lingo, to help students understand concepts in English," he said.

"History impacts the contemporary world that we live in, and I think it's important to diversify what is being taught and give an alternative perspective," Velasquez added. "The narrative that I know from my life is different from the narrative that students are learning in different parts of the country and the world."

Hands-On Teaching Experiences

In the five-year program at Adelphi, Velasquez spent a year in a nearby high school getting hands-on teaching experience-one semester as a student teacher, and then a paid internship in the spring semester. "In classes, you learn education theories. To actually practice them, and see what works with students, helped me figure out what kind of classes I wanted to teach."

During his internship, Velasquez translated for ENL students and served as a teaching assistant for integrated co-teaching (ICT) special education sections of English and US history classes. He would also host a small group of tutoring sessions to support students of various abilities. "These helped me make the transition from being a student to being a teacher," he said.

Veteran teachers at the school helped with both career networking and career guidance. "They gave me a lot of input as to what it's like being a first-year teacher or a second-year teacher. It ultimately resulted in my being able to accept a full-time position there."

A Newman Scholar Committed to Social Change

Velasquez was dedicated to service at Adelphi. He was Adelphi's 2021-2022 Newman Civic Fellow, joining a select group of college students dedicated to civic leadership and social change. He also earned the 2023 President's Student Leadership Award and was senior class president in 2023.

While at Adelphi, he worked with several campus organizations to raise more than $3,000 for a school in El Salvador. He worked with a couple of school districts on Long Island just this year to raise $1,100 for a school in Honduras.

So it may not be surprising that, now that he has graduated, Velasquez plans to start a nonprofit to support schools in different countries.

Closer to home, he wants to get his upcoming students involved in fundraisers to buy supplies for students from lower-income groups in order to help his lessons on history and economics have greater impact.

In addition, he plans to organize a personal finance workshop for the seniors in his economics class. "I want them to apply what they're learning in the classroom to real-life situations by teaching them personal finance, media and financial literacy," he said.

Looking back, he sees inspiration both from his Adelphi professors and from his high school teachers in his hometown of Mineola, around the corner from Adelphi's Garden City campus.

"I had a lot of people there supporting my goals. It's a very powerful thing for a teacher to be able to provide that kind of support and motivation for a student.

"That's the kind of teachers I had, and that's the kind of teacher I want to be."