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Lemoore High School's Mario Gonzalez named Kings County's top teacher at annual Excellence in Education ceremony
Gonzalez is much more than just a teacher. Yes, the 49-year-old Fresno State alum is indeed an art teacher at Lemoore High School, where for the past 22 years he has taught thousands of students the art of drawing, the magic of ceramics, and at times, the science of photography – among other things.
Turns out he’s also spent the last 22 years as an art curator – or as some might say, junk collector – take your pick. The guy is basically an artistic scavenger of sorts, milling about dumpsters and exploring vacant classrooms seeking the unusual, the old, or just plain weird – most of which is likely to end up as art displays on his classroom’s walls, already brimming with past finds and recovered mementos.
His classroom is a work of art unto itself. It’s a smorgasbord of the eclectic, the unusual, and the old. Some might say his colorful classroom is a product of a very imaginative mind, and it’s true, he does have a creative mind, and a sparkling personality. He loves to talk about his art, his work, his students, and he’s never at a loss for words.
The Patterson, California native has something else he can brag about on his resume, other than a distinguished career and his avant-garde classroom. He is the 2017 Lemoore High School District Teacher of the Year, and he’s a finalist in this year’s Kings County Excellence in Education Awards, sponsored every year by the Kings County Office of Education. This year’s awards will be held on Thursday, April 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the West Hills College Lemoore Golden Eagle Arena.
This guy is also a great teacher. Just ask any student or administrator, some of whom evaluate the longtime art teacher. The guy just doesn’t miss a beat. During class, he’s constantly on the move, instructing, praising, consoling. – you name it. He says it’s his job to keep everybody busy – and engaged.
A frequent visitor to Mario’s classroom is Superintendent Debbie Muro, who purposely brings guests to see Mario’s handiwork. “Mr. G, as the students call him, is a beloved teacher at Lemoore High School,” she said. “He is a tremendous artist himself and has a showcase classroom – a real art exhibit in itself. He sees the best in all students and is a great asset to our staff.”
Muro might consider opening Mario’s classroom to the public and charge admission. She was also the one who broke the news that Gonzalez was this year’s Teacher of the Year, informing him with a bouquet of balloons as his students applauded.
He has a way with students, just ask Lemoore Senior Kaitlin Raulino, one of his talented ceramics students, a student in Gonzalez’s class for the past two years. “I just love ceramics,” said Raulino, who prior to entering Gonzalez’s program, had no clue she had any artistic talents. “This is my favorite class, mostly because of Mr. G.
“Before, I thought I had no artistic talent. With Mr. G, I found out that I had a hidden talent,” said the seventeen-year-old who plans on attending West Hills College and Fresno Pacific University in pursuit of a nursing degree.
“He just loves his job. He loves showing up every day, and he treats us like his family. He’s just so positive in class,” said Raulino. “He cares about each and every student. You know you’re going to have a better day after you’ve attended his class.”
If Gonzales ever looks for a new job, it certainly won’t hurt to to cite Raulino as a reference.
His first thought upon hearing of the award was a sense of accomplishment. “I said to myself, I’m being honored for what I’ve done, all the hard work I’ve done from day one here,” he remembered. “It wasn’t just for this year, but the duration of time I’ve been here. It really made me feel special for the entire time I’ve been teaching here.”
The personable Gonzalez is up against a bunch of heavyweight teachers. Others up for the Kings County honor are Mollie Acosta, a Pioneer Middle School teacher, Tracy Cassina, who teaches at Meadow Lane Elementary School in Lemoore, Rose Huff, a teacher at J.C. Montgomery School in Kings County, Anna Rosas, a teacher at Avenal Elementary School, and Andy Thornburg, a former Lemoore High School instructor, now teaching at Earl F. Johnson High School.
Lemoore High’s Astrid Garrovillo, an administrative secretary at Lemoore High School, is in the running for the Kings County School Employee of the Year.
Walking into Gonzalez’s classroom is somewhat akin to taking a stroll through a dumb-downed version of The Louvre, the world’s largest museum, housed in Paris and which boasts the world’s greatest artifacts and works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and the armless “Venus de Milo,” who despite the loss of her arms, beckons visitors into the world’s greatest museum.
While Mario’s classroom is devoid of Da Vinci’s, as far as I noticed, there are objects and artifacts that can make you smile and perhaps wonder about their origins. Were they the product of a dumpster dive or a donation to Mario’s monument to art?
At one end of his classroom, the shiny chrome front bumper of the art teacher’s beloved Chevy Chevelle, hangs quietly on the wall, a silent memorial to his shiny black Chevelle, a car he still owns and drives faithfully to work almost every day.
One of the more remarkable features in his classroom is a life-size painting of the Iwo Jima Memorial, his patriotic tribute to veterans, illustrated perfectly on the wall behind his custom-designed desk.
In numerous cabinets and hidden places throughout his artistic sanctuary there are all forms of artifacts, from a turn-of-the-century camera, to a 1906 copy of an ancient Lemoore High School art book, a tome from a past time.
Gonzalez retrieved these “artifacts” from the depths of the school’s archives, or maybe the nearest dumpster. When longtime teachers retire, he requests permission to scavenge the remains. Over the years, he’s accumulated hundreds of items, many of which hang on the walls of his large inviting classroom.
As an art teacher who teaches an “elective” class, Gonzalez toils in a somewhat uncertain teaching environment. He and his fellow “elective” teachers (electives are those classes students can choose to participate in, rather than “requirements” like math, English, science, and social sciences, which all students need to graduate) are often at the whim of mischievous budget cutters.
With California’s focus on raising test scores, elective programs have struggled in recent years, including programs at Lemoore High School. Several years ago, photography, despite its popularity with students (classes were always full), was eliminated, as was a longtime staple of high school, the auto shop, both victims of a renewed emphasis on graduation and college requirements – and of course lack of state funding.
Neither have been reinstated, but ask any teacher, whether he or she teaches science or beginning drawing, they’re likely to emphasize electives are important to a young person’s development as a well-rounded student, helping him or her to prepare for life after school.
“I always worry about my employment – my job,” said Gonzalez, while sitting at one of five large desks students use for projects. “It’s an elective, and I know most electives, if they’re not meeting students’ needs, they’re probably not going to be taking the class so we’ll probably be the easiest ones to be cut.”
He also laments that electives are always the easiest programs to be cut during tough budget times. He says he may prepare for the eventuality by returning to school and earning another credential, maybe in Special Education.
How important are electives like the arts? “We are all born with specific skills, and unless you’re presented with an opportunity to display them, you need these electives,” said Gonzalez. “Electives are a form of getting the kid to come to school other than the reasons that you have to come to school. It’s like a sport, some students come just for the sport.
“To me, the development of a young person is more of, if you put him in an elective class, do I have some form of success, a little taste of success, and once you taste a little bit of success I think it will lead to bigger and better things. So we need those electives to allow that kid to have that little taste of success. Without electives, I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have been motivated to venture into the educational world.”
What’s his favorite aspect of teaching? “I really enjoy teaching kids the “color wheel,” he said. “There is the fascination of having three basic colors and being able to create every color that exists, which is a process of mixing colors (from the three basic colors).”
Gonzalez says the most challenging part of his job is getting all students engaged. “I have a learning moment every 20 minutes, because our attention span is so short. I get the kids off the desk and I go to the table selected – and I just reteach what I taught at the beginning of the period, which gives them a little bit of a break, and when they go back to their seats they’re recharged and they refocus.”
He originally, while attending Modesto Junior College, wanted to be an illustrator for catalogs. It wasn’t how Picasso started, but at least he could put his artistic talents to work, talents that blossomed sometime in the third grade. “I established my artistic ability in the third grade,” he said. “My teacher always let me do all the drawings on the chalkboard during story time.”
Mario is married to Christina, a teacher, and the two of them have four children, all of whom attended Lemoore High School: Denise, 27, Maryanne, 24, Tina, 22, and Mario, 20. “We were blessed by our kids not embarrassing us in high school,” he laughed.
Dumpster diving for hidden treasures wasn’t his only hobby. Gonzalez, who probably weighs in at a respectable 150 pounds, was once ranked among the upper echelons of the sport of arm wrestling. He began his arm wrestling venture in 1986 and stayed active until 2012. “Ninety percent of the time I placed second,” said Gonzalez, “next to the state and world champion in that weight class.”
He says he competed to stay in shape and says he really enjoyed the competition. But for now, he seems content to do the best job he can instilling in his students a sense of the importance of education, and just as importantly, the relevance of art in education and the production of well-rounded people.
