Ms. Mosquera by Leanndra Martinez

As she bustles around the room with a million tasks to complete, she finally stops and says, "This is how it's been for the past couple of weeks. I haven't gotten any sleep."

She continues on her mission to sweep everything off the old desk and await the new one, all the while talking to me, discussing a paper with a student, and eventually confronting the new monstrous desk that is supposed to fit into a tiny space. As she tries to decide where her new desk is going to fit, another student pops in, asking if her paper is finished.

"You know a teacher is behind when students have to ask the teacher for their corrected papers," she quips.

This type of environment would frazzle most, but instead she seems unfazed by it all. Though the name may be new to students, Ms. Mosquera is not new to El Segundo High School at all. In fact, five years ago she could have been seen strolling down the hallway on her way to journalism class or rushing to a game to cheer on the Eagles. But now she is the one behind the desk, handing out assignments and enlightening her ninth and eleventh grade English classes with knowledge of the literary world.

"It's kind of surreal to be teaching with some of my previous teachers. I had a perception of them as a student that is totally altered now that I'm teaching," Mosquera said.

Though many would consider it weird to be on the same staff as their high school teachers, Mosquera considers it a comfort to have her inspiration teaching across the hall from her.

"I know this might sound like I'm brown nosing, but Dr. Gen gave me the confidence in English. He had a way of teaching English that made students interested," she said.

Mosquera, who graduated in 1998, considered herself "not the most motivated student in high school," but she was able to find her niche in her English classes and it was English that kept her interested in going to school.

Though she enjoyed high school, college was where she blossomed intellectually. After graduating from ESHS, she attended El Camino and then transferred to the University of San Francisco to major in English.

For many students, college is the place where students change their major every semester, but for Mosquera, her major was decided upon since the fifth grade. She always knew that she wanted to be an English major, so she read everything and wrote as much as possible. Mosquera went from reading R.L. Stine novels when she was younger to writing her thesis on nineteenth century Victorian marriages.

"I love writing research papers. In fact, most of my articles for journalism here were ones I could do research for on the Internet," she said.

Though Mosquera has yet to create a curriculum, she knows that she wants her classes to be an open forum where students can express their opinions and learn to articulate their thoughts in a formal essay.

She may be one of the youngest teachers here, but she is coming in with fresh ideas and hopes of intellectually stimulating her students. "I want to teach them to value intellect and to show them that you can apply writing and reading in the real world," Mosquera said.