Juan Monserrat remembers the moment he realized he’d made the right career choice. A few years ago, he had a heartwarming encounter during a conference with the parent of a “difficult” child.
He recalls, “With tears in her eyes, the child’s mother looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Monserrat, I want to thank you because you’ve made such a difference in my child’s life. You have seen good things in him. You have said positive things about him and to him. No one else has done that before.’”
Monserrat’s philosophy: To teach a child, you must first connect with them. “Sometimes they just want to be heard — they want to talk to you, they want to say what’s going on beyond the classroom,” Monserrat says. “That’s why I look for things that we can share or that we have in common, and that’s the starting point to creating a relationship.”
He believes those relationships are crucial to the learning experience. Monserrat teaches algebra and Spanish and coaches soccer at St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School. As a coach, he has more of an opportunity to connect with his kids outside of class, and he sees that as a great advantage.
Instead of focusing solely on teaching — technology, curriculum, best methods — Monserrat has found that extra steps to reach each individual child are necessary. “I think we sometimes forget basic things that human beings need, like interest in not only the knowledge but also what’s happening in each one of us,” Monserrat says. “If there is not such a connection and the child doesn’t see that I really care about him, the teaching is not going to happen. You can be the best teacher in the world and it’s not going to happen.”
Monserrat has been teaching for 14 years — two years in his home-country Argentina, seven years at Bishop Byrne High School, and the last five at St. Agnes Academy-St. Dominic School. He and his family moved to Memphis from Argentina after one of his own children was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a kind of youth cancer, in 1998. “We were blessed to be accepted for treatment at St. Jude Hospital,” he says. He has been married to his wife Maria for 24 years, and they have four children, Maria Luz (23), Juan Jr. (21), Tomas (18), and Emmanuel (13).
“My faith and the love of my family plays a unique role in this equation,” says Monserrat. “And I believe this ministry of teaching is only possible if one has Christ living in one’s life. You can’t give what you don’t have, and you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Students will figure you out pretty quickly!”
Monserrat says being an authentic person is key, and he works everyday to create and maintain connections with his students in and out of class. “That bond has such a big impact,” he says. “When you are able to create that, the students feel empowered to learn.”
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