A Chicago native will be taking charge in room 480 and teaching sophomore World Literature and freshman Reading and Writing Across the Genres to Parker students this school year.

His name is Pedro Gonzalez—the new upper school English teacher substituting for upper school English head Theresa Collins during her sabbatical year.

Gonzalez grew up on the south side in the neighborhood of Little Village in the Pilsen area. From there, he moved to Gage Park near Midway Airport when he was in fourth grade, and has lived there all his life.

Gonzalez has always loved writing but had an interest in medicine in high school and at the start of college. Gonzalez attended Curie High School and after went to UIC as a Biology major but then realized that path wasn’t for him. After taking some classes at DePaul University, Gonzalez decided to pursue English as a major. He also majored in Latino Studies and Linguistics.

“I’ve been a writer all my life, and I’ve performed at open mics and enjoy writing poetry,” Gonzalez said. “Writing has been something I’ve always loved doing for fun.”

Gonzalez studied to earn his license to be able to teach, and it wasn’t until that program that he discovered a passion for teaching. “I was fortunate to figure it out along the way,” Gonzalez said. “I enjoy being able to teach others the way that I learned and in the style I like to teach.”

Because he’s lived in the area his entire life and has taught at many different schools in the city, Gonzalez has known about Parker for a while. As a student at DePaul he participated in a partnership with Parker for which he was able to walk around the school and sit in on classes.

“It was with DePaul that I was able to come into this school and was able to learn more about it by looking at the mission,” Gonzalez said. “The push to wanting to be progressive and social justice – oriented has been a part of my background, and the curriculum that I’ve built for my classes in English is catered to do exactly that.”

According to Gonzalez, he realized he wanted to pursue a place at Parker after going through the interview process and reading the description Parker gave him of what they were looking for in a teacher.

Gonzalez is excited about spending a year teaching in the Parker community. “As a teacher in this field, each year there’s never really a guarantee, especially how it is in the city with other schools,” Gonzalez said. “A big part of my curriculum is figuring out how to move forward in creating a bond with students at the beginning, so we can do the work that we have to do within the year.”

Senna Gardner, a sophomore enrolled in his World Literature class this year, said, “What I’m most excited about is getting to know him, and to see the new ideas he’ll bring to the English department.”

Gabe Rothschild, another sophomore taking World Literature with Gonzalez this year, feels similarly to Gardner. Rothschild said, “I’m looking forward to meeting Mr. Gonzalez and reading books in his class such as ‘The Odyssey.’”

When Gonzalez is not teaching, one can find him traveling around the world, taking classes in literature at Northwestern, singing, performing at open mics around town, or working on a fictional coming of age story based on his experiences growing up in the city of Chicago, which he hopes can become a book someday.