Jon Montoya ’18 didn’t know any English until first grade. He grew up believing college was not an option for him. Now he’s a Wabash College alumnus teaching pre-AP English at a high school in San Antonio, Texas. In his first two years of teaching, he was nominated for his school’s Teacher of the Year Award. “I see a lot of myself in a lot of my students,” he says.
For the first few years of my life, I was raised by my mom’s aunt in Honduras.
My mom never went to school past the seventh grade, and she desperately wanted me to be able to have a U.S. education. So, while I was in Honduras, she was working for an older couple in Miami. Even though I would visit my mom, she didn’t have enough money for me to live with her full-time until I was five or six—just in time for school.
I didn’t know English, but I was eager to learn. At least for a while.
When I was a teenager, my mom and I moved to Indianapolis, and I attended Arsenal Technical High School. Over the next four years, we probably moved six or seven times. I stayed at Tech the entire time because each move was always in the same vicinity, but I was a terrible student.
Actually, I was a pretty awful person. Unless I decided I liked them, I really gave my teachers hell.
For the first two years of high school, I had about 40 absences and my GPA was among the lowest in the class. I wasn’t dumb. I knew what I was doing. But I didn’t think college was an option for me then.
After my brother’s dad kicked us out of his house, we were in our fourth place in a year and a half. My mom and my younger brother shared the bedroom. I slept in the living room.
Over the course of that summer, I started getting this sense of just being tired of it all. I was angry at myself. I felt like I had let my mom down. After all of the sacrifices she had made—like sending me to Honduras while she was saving money for us and doing everything she could to raise me in the United States—all I had done to pay her back was be a really shitty student.
I began to realize how bad that made her look. My mom is a great person with an extremely kind soul, and I was not projecting that into the world.
It was then I knew I needed to start taking things more seriously.
My GPA was considerably better my junior year and the first semester of my senior year, but it was still only about a 2.5. I only had three good semesters of high school for a college to look at, but all I wanted was for someone to look past my transcript. I needed someone to take a shot on me. I remember praying, God, please just get me in somewhere, and I will take care of the rest.
That’s when Wabash found me.
I only played football my senior year of high school, but that’s how I caught the attention of former Wabash Assistant Football Coach, David Denham.
Considering I grew up thinking college wasn’t attainable, it felt good to have one actually interested in me. So, I applied to Wabash and figured if I didn’t get in, I could still go to a community college.
During the admissions process, I explained the circumstances I was coming from and how hard I had been trying to turn things around. I told them I didn’t believe my 2.5 GPA was an accurate representation of who I was as a student.
I’ll never forget the call from Coach Denham telling me I had been accepted. He didn’t want to wait for me to get the letter; he wanted to tell me himself. I was emotional, my mom cried, and it was the greatest, most joyful feeling I’ve ever experienced. Jon Montoya ’18 didn’t know any English until first grade. He grew up believing college was not an option for him. Now he’s a Wabash College alumnus teaching pre-AP English at a high school in San Antonio, Texas. In his first two years of teaching, he was nominated for his school’s Teacher of the Year Award. “I see a lot of myself in a lot of my students,” he says.
Wabash looked past my transcript. They took a chance on me. But I still had a lot to prove—including to myself. I dealt with a lot of self-doubt my freshman year.
I remember getting back my first test in Professor Ethan Hollander’s political science class. I got a 46%. So many negative thoughts started running through my head: Your good semesters in high school were just flukes.
As much as I wanted to write the obituary for my college career after getting that test back, I knew I needed to try to find my confidence, so I kept telling myself I did belong at Wabash.
I majored in psychology, but by my senior year, my résumé looked like I majored in building relationships.
I coached fifth grade basketball with Hank Horner ’18 at Hoover Elementary in Crawfordsville. Even though it was probably one of the most chaotic experiences of my life, I loved being those kids’ coach. I served as a mentor for two summers with the Wabash Liberal Arts Immersion Program (WLAIP), and I saw the impact I could have on students who come from similar backgrounds as myself.
When my friend Ryan Walters ’18 told me that he was going to do Teach for America, I decided to explore it myself. The more I learned about TFA and its mission, the more I could see myself being a part of it—paying it forward. I felt like I had a lot to offer kids who look like me, who don’t think education is that important. That used to be me. I felt like I could be a credible messenger for them.
Now, here I am—an educator in San Antonio at Harvey E. Najim, an IDEA public school that focuses on college prep. The school is located on the east side of San Antonio, Texas, consists of about 50/50 Black and Hispanic students, and approximately 98% of the student body is low income. I teach pre-AP English to high school freshmen. And I was right; I see a lot of myself in my students.
I have had very, very good students. I have been lucky to have had students who have welcomed challenges, worked incredibly hard, and have finished each year so proud of themselves. But it’s not always easy for them.
In my classroom, many of my kids worry a lot about their families and their home situations, so my goal is to make sure they leave not loathing learning or school. I refuse to take myself too seriously as a teacher.
We do work hard. The last thing I want is for my kids to get to 10th grade and struggle with reading and writing. I still want them to be practicing and participating, but I’m more cognizant of some of the things they might be experiencing outside the classroom.
We started the school year by reading To Kill a Mockingbird. After the summer our country faced, I wanted them to know what kind of teacher I was right off the bat. I think the last thing students need, especially students of color, are teachers who ignore the issues they face. We ended up having really good discussions about race, identity, and class.
Every day, I want to build better relationships with my students. I want to be someone my kids can depend on—someone they know will show up. Naturally, when you’re trying to be that person, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of sadness. Every student weighs heavy on my heart almost all of the time.
At the start of COVID-19 last year, I lost a student to gun violence. We used to talk about the importance of education, understanding your emotions, and not being angry all of the time. I had seen so much of myself in her. She was so young and bright. Getting that news was tough. I struggled trying to process it. Even more difficult was trying to process it with the rest of my students in a virtual setting.
Most teachers, myself included, go through life wishing we could help all of our kids. We wish we could be a rock for them when they need us outside of the classroom. But we just can’t.
I still want them to know that I see them, though, that I understand more than they think I do, and want to learn about the things I don’t.
It was an easy decision to start teaching, but I have made the very hard decision to leave the classroom. I am moving back to Indianapolis to be with my family. My mom had to stop working, my older sister has three-year-old twins, and my little brother is in the seventh grade. I feel like I’m missing too much. I love my students, I love what I do, but I can’t afford to continue teaching while also taking care of my mom and my brother long distance.
I haven’t ruled out the possibility of returning to the classroom someday—maybe when I know my mom is set and I have a good 401(k). But, for now, it’s on to the next thing.
I know I’ll have to prove myself again, but I have a lot more confidence this time. I’ve been a teacher, and someone who’s been a teacher can do just about anything.