Room 1408 sits hidden in the language hallway of Ankeny High School, and inside, a peculiar event is taking place. Within the classroom, every student gets up from their seat, some heading to the back of the classroom, some staying up front. While the students get in place, the teacher, Rosana Brewer, pulls up a video on YouTube. As soon as the video starts, music pumps into the room and the students begin to dance in unison. This event, affectionately called Baile Viernes (Dance Friday), happens every Friday in Brewer’s room and is the highlight of the week for Spanish students.
“So, I took classes, and then I decided to do the masters. And then, because I knew Spanish, I took a test that’s called CLEP… It’s like a college-level exam proficiency, and I got the most credits.” Brewer mentioned.
Brewer talked about how she studied to be a Spanish teacher receiving help from the US government in order to teach.
“So then the Department of Education gave me a conditional license… so, I could have this conditional license with [Department of Education saying] ‘You need to finish this amount of classes in this amount of time.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I can do it.’ So, I started taking classes and having fun, and then, here I am!” Brewer said.
Many students describe Brewer as having a positive and energetic personality. Students detail her as creative, caring, witty, and sarcastic.
“She was very energetic, like the Energizer bunny on maybe five or six energy drinks type of thing,” junior Alex Hoxeng explained. “Yeah, it’s very obvious that she cares for her students. She likes to check up on them. She also really enjoys our joking… and is also very sarcastic. And so if someone says something like, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t do that today,’ We just get a ‘Nope. Not at all. Not a chance.’”
Brewer also talked about the effect of positivety on her students.
“I feel like if I’m not happy, if I’m not positive, then I think my lesson will not be good. I see the positive in everything, right? You know, it’s kind of cool,” Brewer said. “As I said, life is short. You have to be positive. You have to be energetic for this age otherwise if I’m [tired], the kids are going to take a nap.”
Brewer mentioned that her students are her motivation for teaching.
“Seeing my kids growing. Seeing [that] they’re becoming more fluent. [Seeing the students’] excitement to learn. So, I love it; [I’m] making a difference in the kid’s life. Sometimes they want to be a Spanish teacher, and [I’m] like ‘yes!’ or they want to have a minor or major in Spanish and [I’m] like ‘yes!,” Brewer explained.
Brewer’s dedication to her students is also shown in how she creates the class materials herself and the amount of work she puts in both at school and at home.
“On my weekends, Friday night is when I do my planning. Friday nights are when I put my grades in. Saturday, I take a break. Sundays are when I do my announcements. I like to be ready for classes[and] I make my slides,” Brewer mentioned.
Brewer’s slides are well known among her students for being colorful, fun, and different everyday. They contain vivid backgrounds of many colors, fonts of every style and color, and little cartoons that relate to the day’s lesson.
“So it is a lot of after here [school] that nobody sees what we do outside the classroom,” Brewer stated. “[I] created this mapa Miercoles (Wednesday map) that goes with the musica (music). So it’s a musica (song), then a mapa (map), musica mapa,” Brewer said.
Mapa Miercoles is just one of the tools Brewer uses to teach with her unique style. Along with other packets, Brewer puts a heavy emphasis on speaking with fluency with her students.
“I’ve noticed that …our [Brewer’s class] speaking is much more fluent, even through the first eight weeks of school than what I’ve noticed in other classes,” Hoxeng said.
Junior Jaisaiah Sholley-Gonzalez mentioned something similar, talking about how Brewer pushes her students not only to talk, but also to work hard in class.
“I think it’s important that she pushes her students to work hard, especially when we’re talking in class. She wants us to talk more, so I think that’s important,” Sholley-Gonzalez said.
Being a teacher and pushing students to be better is something that Brewer said is integral to her life, talking about how there was nothing she would change about being a teacher.
“I don’t think I can be anything different. I told my principal the other day, if you say, ‘Hey Rosana [Brewer], you can’t teach anymore,’ I think I would probably stay home. I don’t know what to do if I’m not a teacher. I think I was born to be a teacher…. I really love being a teacher,” Brewer stated.
