Giving back by nurturing potential
Patricia Cortez, recently named Choice/Magnet Teacher of the Year, knew from a young age she wanted to teach. She even has childhood mementos to prove it—including the drawing of a teacher and a photo of herself pretending to teach her kindergarten class.
As Cortez made her way through Dallas ISD’s Casa View Elementary, Henry W. Longfellow Career Exploration Academy, and Skyline High School her desire to teach was nurtured by teachers who saw her potential.
“I was a very shy child, and a lot of my teachers believed in me so much that they continuously pushed me to do better things,” Cortez said. “First, they pushed me to join the math club, and then, they pushed me to join the University Interscholastic League. It just gave me the feeling to want to go back and be a teacher myself and be that person for my students.”
At The University of Texas at Arlington, Cortez majored in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on bilingual education and later pursued a master’s in curriculum and instruction from Texas Tech University. After graduate school, Cortez returned to Casa View to teach, coming full circle in her journey.
“What really kept me wanting to pursue education was all the teachers that influenced me, all the teachers that were there for me,” she said.
Cortez began doing her part in guiding students so they can also reach their full potential through robotics. Her robotics journey started when a colleague asked if she wanted to take part in a new Dallas ISD initiative, she said.
“No way. I don’t want to do that,” she said to him. “I have no clue how to build a robot or anything like that. I have no engineering background.”
Despite her initial reluctance, Cortez began comentoring the EagleBots in 2017, the school’s first coed robotics team, and three years later, at the request of two third-grade students, started mentoring an all-girls robotics team, the LadyBots.
“A lot of the time in STEM, girls are pushed off to the side to do smaller tasks,” Cortez said. “All tasks are meaningful in robotics, but the girls are not working on the nitty gritty of robotics, like building and driving and programming.”
Though Cortez felt out of her depth mentoring an all-girls team, her students and coworkers believed she could do it and succeed.
“The girls said, ‘It’s okay, we can all learn together. You always told us that we can learn anything, so let’s all learn together,’” Cortez said.
Cortez and the four members of the LadyBots have made a name for themselves at the state and national level. Not only did they receive the Excellence Award and Teamwork Champion Award at the VEX IQ State Tournament, but they also competed in the 2023 Vex Robotics World Championships and took home the Girl Powered Award and the Build Award.
“The LadyBots were honored for being so empowering to each other and for showing that girls do belong in STEM,” Cortez said.
Cortez founded a new chapter of the LadyBots at the School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove, where she now teaches sixth-grade world cultures and seventh-grade Texas history. This robotics team, which includes two of the original members from her previous school, is also leaving its mark, getting recognition at regional championships and ranking among the nation’s top robotics teams for its members’ exceptional skills.
Even in the classroom Cortez brings history to life through STEM-inspired, hands-on activities. Not so long ago, she challenged her class to create artifacts from various eras in Texas history. One student used robotic pieces to build a diorama of Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Another built a railroad system and a cattle network to represent the era of cotton, cattle, and railroads. A third student designed an oil rig equipped with movable parts to simulate Spindletop gushing oil.
“These kinds of activities are what they love most,” Cortez said. “They are thinking critically on how to solve this challenge.”
This hands-on approach reflects Cortez’ teaching philosophy, and its emphasis on STEM integration in the curriculum, which fosters trust, and even embraces failure.
“We must create a culture that accepts that not everything is going to work. There is no right or wrong answer. Students need to embrace failure,” she said.
Of her recognition as Dallas ISD’s Magnet Teacher of the Year she said:
“It’s an absolute honor to be named Teacher of the Year for this amazing district that gave me so many opportunities and opened so many doors for me. It’s still surreal for me.”
Cortez praises Dallas ISD for its commitment to extracurricular activities, which lay the groundwork for her career.
“As an alumna and now a teacher, Dallas ISD has taught me to value extracurriculars and exposure to things that students aren’t normally exposed to,” she said. “That is what makes our students think out of the box. It helps us develop relationships with our students outside of the classroom to where they can have that trust in us, and once we have their trust, they work even harder in the classroom.”
