“I was fourteen when I decided I wanted to teach,” Tony Castro remembers.  As a teacher’s aide in an eighth grade computer programming class, he was encouraged by the teacher one day to instruct the class on a program’s design.  “I saw my peers’ eyes get bigger and bigger with understanding, and I was hooked,” he says.

Castro had not originally planned on becoming a social studies teacher, however.  His initial plan was to teach English, but the relevancy and diversity of voices present in his history classes became increasingly enticing to him.  Castro went on to teach social studies to the middle and high school grades for seven years, serve on various curriculum writing teams, and eventually became a teacher educator at the university level.

Castro recently joined the College of Education as an assistant professor of social studies education in the department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum (LTC), as well as a tenure-track researcher.  “This means that I get to wear two hats,” he says.  “The hat of an instructor, and the hat of a researcher.”

When wearing the hat of an instructor, Castro teaches courses in middle school and high school social studies education, along with an online graduate course.  In the classroom, he tries to engage students in constructing their own opinions about various topics by posing open-ended questions and prompting discussions on controversial issues.  He also encourages students to develop their own personal views on what it means to be a teacher, while reminding them that issues of equity are extremely important. 

“Equity for all peoples—that’s what a democracy is,” Castro says.  “What greater bearers of democracy are there than teachers?”  

While he greatly loves teaching, Castro also enjoys wearing the hat of a researcher.  He is currently studying the recruitment, preparation and retention of teachers for culturally diverse contexts and urban schools.  A brief description of this research is as follows:

Teacher Recruitment:  Castro is researching how second-career teachers and alternative certification programs can be used to compensate for teacher shortages, as well as how undergraduate students feel about teaching in diverse contexts and how to recruit teachers of color.

Pre-Service Teacher Preparation:  His research investigates pre-service teachers’ views of cultural diversity, social justice, the role of practical experience in urban, multicultural and community settings, and teachers’ curriculum decision-making.

Teacher Retention:  Finally, he seeks to explore the reasons as to why teachers have difficulty remaining in urban and culturally diverse schools for extended lengths of time, as well as issues of teacher resiliency, curriculum decision-making, and teacher agency.

While he has come a long way since his days in the eight grade computer programming class, Castro has stayed true to his love of teaching.  He has been able to combine that love with his enthusiasm for history and researching to create a career that he is passionate about.  

He hopes that his students will find the same in their lives: “Be clear about what draws you to teaching.  That will sustain you through the difficult times,” he says.  “And keep all the cards you get from your students.  Those will help, too.”