\u201cI\u2019ve spent nearly 10 years teaching pre-service teachers, and there\u2019s so much that we can learn and model from the ways we get to learn and interact with them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s so often that we do this kind of work, that we prescribe policies, practices and procedures and rarely tap into the knowledge that [future teachers] bring and acknowledge the ways in which you are all going to be impacted by these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expand definitions of community: <\/strong>The school community, Montoya said, has a lot to gain if it looks outside the walls of the classroom, particularly to elderly residents who have decades of experience they can share with youth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn my community, where I come from, we say that when elders die, it\u2019s like a library burning down,\u201d Montoya said. \u201cI\u2019ve been in so many classes with my in-service teachers and say \u2018Why don\u2019t you invite some grandparents in here who can animate history?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plant seeds for growth: <\/strong>Montoya compared efforts and initiatives for student success to supermarket flowers, saying that while they may look good at first, they won\u2019t last long because they don\u2019t have roots. So, he encouraged future educators to think of their work with students as engaging in the hard work of cultivating their own garden\u2014planting seeds that will take root and grow and develop over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t wish in outcomes. No matter what you do, you have to work it in. The only way you can do that is by planting seeds \u2026 but, we also have to know that not everything will grow,\u201d he said. \u201cThink of every lesson, every student, every opportunity, everything that you assign as a seed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers are artists: <\/strong>Finding success in working with students, Montoya said, is like painting a mosaic. Teachers work to blend elements together to make a complete picture and must always think ahead to the next piece. But, sometimes, the piece doesn\u2019t come out as expected and needs to be started again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that we have to think of this work more as artists. Think of your classrooms, think of your students as mosaics, not as linear equations,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you\u2019ve got to scrape that canvas and start over. But that doesn\u2019t mean you didn\u2019t learn anything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alejandro Amaya, a doctoral student in the NC State College of Education\u2019s Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences, received the Don C. Locke Multicultural and Justice Award during the symposium. The annual award honors the legacy of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Don C. Locke by recognizing a doctoral student who embodies his commitment to multiculturalism, justice and advocacy. Amaya\u2019s work focuses on illuminating the rights and voices of Indigenous people. He also serves as treasurer for both the Latine Graduate Student Association and the Bilingual Education Student Organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year\u2019s recipient of the award, Maria Heysha Carrillo Carrasquillo, presented Amaya with the award. \u201cAs the 2024 recipient of this same honor, I feel especially privileged to pass this torch to someone whose work I’ve witnessed firsthand during our years together in the program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n Roberto Montoya grew up caught between two worlds. He lived in poverty with his high school-educated mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico, hanging out in the local park and finding escape in art, fantasy novels and hip hop. But, he also spent time with relatives on his father\u2019s side of the family, who all held advanced degrees and introduced him to the world of academia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Montoya, who is about to begin a role as vice president for student services at Colorado Mesa University, draws on this dissonance he felt during his childhood in his work as a scholar to find better ways to serve all students, communities, and institutions and help them succeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the speaker at the seventh annual Don C. Locke Symposium, held on March 3 and hosted by the NC State College of Education, Montoya shared some advice for pre-service teachers in attendance as they prepare to serve their future students and schools, as well as for those who work with future teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Value input from those who will be in the classroom: <\/strong>In his time working in partnership with a variety of institutions, Montoya noticed that not all invite future educators to participate in the conversation when developing the practices and pedagogies expected of future teachers. However, he believes that veteran educators can learn something from those new to the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve spent nearly 10 years teaching pre-service teachers, and there\u2019s so much that we can learn and model from the ways we get to learn and interact with them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s so often that we do this kind of work, that we prescribe policies, practices and procedures and rarely tap into the knowledge that [future teachers] bring and acknowledge the ways in which you are all going to be impacted by these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expand definitions of community: <\/strong>The school community, Montoya said, has a lot to gain if it looks outside the walls of the classroom, particularly to elderly residents who have decades of experience they can share with youth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn my community, where I come from, we say that when elders die, it\u2019s like a library burning down,\u201d Montoya said. \u201cI\u2019ve been in so many classes with my in-service teachers and say \u2018Why don\u2019t you invite some grandparents in here who can animate history?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plant seeds for growth: <\/strong>Montoya compared efforts and initiatives for student success to supermarket flowers, saying that while they may look good at first, they won\u2019t last long because they don\u2019t have roots. So, he encouraged future educators to think of their work with students as engaging in the hard work of cultivating their own garden\u2014planting seeds that will take root and grow and develop over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t wish in outcomes. No matter what you do, you have to work it in. The only way you can do that is by planting seeds \u2026 but, we also have to know that not everything will grow,\u201d he said. \u201cThink of every lesson, every student, every opportunity, everything that you assign as a seed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers are artists: <\/strong>Finding success in working with students, Montoya said, is like painting a mosaic. Teachers work to blend elements together to make a complete picture and must always think ahead to the next piece. But, sometimes, the piece doesn\u2019t come out as expected and needs to be started again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that we have to think of this work more as artists. Think of your classrooms, think of your students as mosaics, not as linear equations,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you\u2019ve got to scrape that canvas and start over. But that doesn\u2019t mean you didn\u2019t learn anything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alejandro Amaya, a doctoral student in the NC State College of Education\u2019s Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences, received the Don C. Locke Multicultural and Justice Award during the symposium. The annual award honors the legacy of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Don C. Locke by recognizing a doctoral student who embodies his commitment to multiculturalism, justice and advocacy. Amaya\u2019s work focuses on illuminating the rights and voices of Indigenous people. He also serves as treasurer for both the Latine Graduate Student Association and the Bilingual Education Student Organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year\u2019s recipient of the award, Maria Heysha Carrillo Carrasquillo, presented Amaya with the award. \u201cAs the 2024 recipient of this same honor, I feel especially privileged to pass this torch to someone whose work I've witnessed firsthand during our years together in the program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the speaker at the seventh annual Don C. Locke Symposium, Roberto Montoya shared advice for pre-service teachers as they prepare to serve their future students and schools, as well as for those who work with future teachers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":97735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"displayCategoryID\":185,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[439,185],"tags":[917,270,217],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-97734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-and-engagement","category-news","tag-don-c-locke-symposium","tag-homepage-news","tag-news"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":185,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":185,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":2263,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97746,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97734\/revisions\/97746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97734"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=97734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Doctoral Student Alejandro Amaya Receives Don C. Locke Award<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ced.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2025\/03\/Alejandro-and-Heysha.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDoctoral Student Alejandro Amaya Receives Don C. Locke Award<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n