Ms. Shannon Patron, Fort Lauderdale High School’s new history teacher, has always enjoyed learning about history. She says it’s due to the great history teachers she herself had who were able to nurture her curiosity into a passion.

“I never understood why people regarded history teachers as the most boring,” Ms. Patron commented. “History is something that’s a living, breathing subject. We can trace nearly every major modern event to historical causes and triggers.” 

Her mother always wanted to become an archeologist, but she could not afford to attend college. Ms. Patron worked hard to attend Florida State University and take on the dream of higher education.

Ms. Patron has prior experience teaching–she taught students with learning disabilities.

“It’s made me realize that everyone learns differently and that everyone deserves a quality education, regardless of ability or achievement level,” she explained.

Ms. Patron strives to be the type of teacher that people regard as the fun and fair teacher.

“I’ve had a lot of fair and fun teachers, and a lot who were the exact opposite. A lot of my teachers that I regarded as unfair didn’t treat all students the same way. I once had a math teacher who kicked a girl out of class based on her appearance,” she explained. “It’s experiences like this that made me want to be the kind of teacher I am.”  

Ms. Patron accomplishes her goal by finding ways to make her students happy.

 “I love building relationships with my students and showing them funny history memes to get a smile out of [them],” she said.

When not getting smiles out of her students, Ms. Patron gets her positivity by walking in Hugh Taylor Birch State Park as an avid animal and nature lover.

“The serene atmosphere is definitely a huge plus for me, especially since COVID has kept us all inside,” she shared. “I love having the opportunity to get fresh air and potentially spotting a cute little animal out in the wild.” 

This article is part of our series on new teachers in the 2020-21 school year. To see the full list of new teachers, click here.