Series: 2023 Teacher Appreciation Week

All teachers have their own unique journey and story to becoming a teacher. Some chose teaching as their first career and others may have chosen a different path of career before becoming a teacher. That being said, I chose to interview our James Campbell High School Spanish/ceramics teacher Yadira Rosa, in which teaching wasn’t her first choice or career at all. A teaching career for Rosa came later for her in which she pursued and had another career. Before becoming a teacher Rosa went to college to study a career in business. While majoring in business in college she was also a part of the ROTC program which led her into joining the military.

 When Rosa began a career in the military she was commissioned as a lieutenant and interactive duty. In her career with the military she served five years. After her service in the military Rosa had her child which prompted her into thinking about becoming a teacher. But with her husband being deployed at that time to the 9/11 war in Afghanistan they got stationed in Germany. 

Having worked her entire life Rosa’s diligence couldn’t keep her away from the workforce. She took initiative and made the decision to start working at the military daycare in Germany and enrolled her baby in the daycare as well. Working with the kids at the daycare is what really brought her aspiration to become a teacher to the forefront. Rosa returned back to school and received a teaching degree in which she started out working as a kindergarten teacher for the department of defense in Germany. After working as a kindergarten teacher for two years is when her husband was eventually deployed to Oahu and she began working as a Spanish teacher in Waianae. 

Rosa’s life has been a back and forth between living in Germany to the mainland then Hawaii for the past years. Now after having a teaching career that spans from 2005 to present day, she expresses her enjoyment of teaching and feels teachers have an influence on students in helping guide them through high school and shaping the future. She’s now found her permanent home in Hawaii in which she says she will retire.