Walking down the foreign language hallway, one is bombarded with a cacophony of unfamiliar sounds—hellos are intermixed with holas and bonjours, and students are momentarily transported to isolated pockets of foreign countries right in the middle of an American high school. At the heart of this stands Spanish teacher Jeanette Rodriguez.

CFISD announced Rodriguez as one of the 2014-2015 Spotlight Teachers last spring, an honor given to only 86 of the district’s close to 7,000 faculty. She will be honored this upcoming October at the annual Salute to the Stars Gala.

“I was shocked and overwhelmed with emotion,” Rodriguez said of receiving the award. “I felt really proud.”

Rodriguez was named a “Creator of a Student-Centered Environment,” though she insists that she doesn’t do it alone.

“It’s just me guiding them,” she said. “Really, it’s the students doing the work.”

Rodriguez strives to instill her passion into every class she teaches, including Spanish IIIK and Spanish IV AP. She said she is humbled to be able to impart her love of her first language onto dozens of students each day.

“I get to pass on my enthusiasm about learning a language,” she said. “I love culture and I think that learning Spanish with the culture opens up an entire world to students.”

Rodriguez can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to be a teacher. Her first student was her younger brother, on whom she practiced her first lesson plans.

“I played teacher when I was young,” she said. “I taught my brother to write his name before he went to Kindergarten.”

She began teaching five years ago, debuting here at Cy Ranch, and has loved every second of it.

“I love what I do,” Rodriguez said. “I enjoy teaching, I enjoy coming to school, I enjoy coming to work and working with the students. It has been very rewarding.”

Rodriguez believes that learning a foreign language in high school is one of the most important things a student can do, especially since Americans live in an increasingly diversified global community.

“Houston is composed of a huge diversity of cultures and ethnicities,” she said. “I think that’s one of the beautiful things about it. Learning a language makes students more open to cultures. It makes students strive to get to know other people, and overall just being more connected with the world.”

Though her job gives her many rewards, Rodriguez said that her biggest is seeing her students grow as the class moves on, and sometimes returning for a second year in her classes.

“The growth as a student,” she said when asked what her favorite part of teaching was. “It’s very exciting. Being able to see students for two years was very rewarding, and I think it impacted them more. I was able to work with them and really see that growth.”

Rodriguez’s accomplishments with the student body go beyond the classroom, however. She sponsored the Breakfast Club last year, an organization that worked with local food pantries to give back to the community. The Breakfast Club also organized Humanitarian Night, an after-school event that allowed clubs to perform.

“I believe these students really created an impact,” she said.

This year, she is sponsoring Cook for a Cause, a club that works to alleviate hunger in the greater Houston area. Though she hasn’t spent much time with the club yet, she is confident they will prove to be wonderful community members.

“Cook for a Cause really represented the community well last year,” she said.

This year, the Cook for a Cause plans to donate pastries to local soup kitchens and adopt a family during the Christmas season.

“This club represents the giving and caring hearts of the students that we have at this school,” Rodriguez said.

Ultimately, Rodriguez’s joy comes from the little things.

“I think at the end of the day when I leave, I feel that satisfaction from that one student who was able to accomplish something,” she said. “If they’re being successful, those are the things that maybe I can’t grasp physically, but in my heart, making that difference to a student is rewarding.”