English Teacher; ELA Department Chair
Class of 2008 BA; 2009 Teaching Cred
By Kirstin Rizk, English Intern
Daniel Hendricks was the first in his family to go to college. His second year of studying pre-law at UC Irvine, he hit a bump in the road. “Nobody told me that the FAFSA was something I needed to fill out every year. So first year was fine. And then second year was this like, ‘What do you mean I need to suddenly supply this huge amount of money?’” He earned enough for tuition and books by commercial fishing, but it didn’t cover much else. He became homeless during sophomore year, sleeping in his car in the school parking lot and hopping couches at his friends’ apartments.
Concluding that the situation was untenable, Daniel joined the Air Force where he worked in military intelligence.
Altogether, before finding his home in teaching English, he worked in commercial fishing, construction, restaurants, retail, clerical work, military intelligence in the Air Force and then at the City of Long Beach’s Youth Services to support his wife through her teaching credential. Around this time, he realized teaching English would be the most suitable career for him because, in his words, “I would totally spend hours sitting around having those conversations with friends for free. And that's just my love of literature.” So, once his wife finished her credential, he pursued his degree and credential at CSUCI (which he chose for its the small class size and sense of community and still highly recommends). He was about 32 when he started what would be his lifelong career of teaching. He has since taught at various schools throughout California, with the last ten years at a STEM school called the Palmdale Aerospace Academy (PAA) where his wife also works.
PAA is a STEM-centered K-12 charter school that has exemplified what school can be when educators are permitted to build their courses/school in a way that truly engages students and sets them up for success in our tech-centered world. At PAA, STEM classes are required starting early, and then around sophomore year, students have the option to choose either the _____, _____, or ______ track.
With such a unique set up, the school has allowed for other creative changes, so long as they benefit students. Daniel’s English Program is a great example. About six years ago, a study showed that, for a large number of adults, the last book they read was an assigned reading in high school. Daniel and his colleagues took this as a challenge: “Well, maybe if we tried to make senior year a little more engaging, we could get them interested in reading for pleasure. So we did a bunch of student surveys, and we came up with three options for regular 12th Grade English. Mine is mythology and fantasy. Another teacher teaches dystopia and science fiction. And then a third one teaches young adult.” By allowing students to choose their genre, they would have the same learning outcomes for 12th grade English, but could learn it in the most enjoyable way for them. As the English Department Chair for grades 6-12, Daniel was instrumental in designing and implementing this system and has adored putting together the mythology and fantasy option for 12th grade English.
In his Myth and Fantasy class, the first semester is spent surveying the mythologies from Yoruba, Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Sumerian, Chinese, Japanese, Polynesian, Aboriginal Australian, North and Central Native American, Aztec, and Inca cultures. The second semester, they read some early fantasy novels and then students select from a pool of a dozen fantasy novels that use one of the mythologies covered in the first semester as part of its world building. Daniel adds, “I am extremely happy to have been given some free reign for this class, so am able to offer students opportunities to read a variety of fantasy from BIPOC authors that do not appear in the traditional canon.”
Another observation that Daniel made was that many students were having difficulty with writing. Recalling his work at CSUCI’s Writing and Multicultural Literacy Center (WMLC), Daniel and another teacher who also worked at CSUCI’s WMLC decided to build their own writing center. He states, “We went to back to CSUCI, met with the director of WMLC there, and basically, they all worked with us and helped us put together a training program. And we would bring in our high school tutors, we took them to come see Channel Islands, and they went into the writing center there and sort of get to experience a college writing center as if they were going there for tutoring. And it worked really well. Our school paid their wages while they were doing that, so I think it worked out for everyone.”
In addition to his role as English Department Chair, he is both WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) Chair, and part of the inaugural bargaining committee since his school unionized.
Daniel loves teaching. Speaking with him, its clear that the only thing he dislikes about being a teacher is bureaucracy getting in the way of teachers teaching or students learning. The catalyst to PAA staff unionizing was when the board removed all existing administrative staff, replaced them, and made changes such as forbidding taking a day off, cutting teacher’s salary by nearly $6,000 a year, and creating a policy that states that nobody can be on campus if the principal or vice principal are not on campus. The school’s nationally competitive robotics teams were severely impacted. They went from nine robotics teams to three. Since COVID, the Writing Center has also been slow to start back up because of this rule.
Daniel says, “While this is an incredibly fulfilling career, it can also be exhausting, and a lack of support makes all the difference. While it has been an exciting experience to be in the front row of our unionization, it was preferable when we didn’t feel the need to unionize to protect ourselves.”
It is a shame, because these limitations risk the elimination of the things that make PAA a unique school: its creative and hardworking teachers and learning opportunities outside cookie-cutter lesson plans and topics.
Nonetheless, with the union addressing these issues, Daniel has no desire to move on. He loves teaching, the school, and showing his students that there isn’t always a perfect and clear path to success or happiness. He says, “At the beginning of the year, for my seniors, I always go, ‘Okay, this is gonna take a while, but here's some random jobs I had.’ And then at the end, I go, ‘now this means if you want information about any of these jobs, or community college or state college or military, feel free to ask away.’” While the choice wasn’t clear right after high school, Daniel has certainly found an excellent career to put his varied work experience, love of literature, creative approaches to teaching, and dedication to good use.
Email: dmhendricks@tpaa.org