Speaker: Courtney Carrazana, Physical Education Teacher
Please introduce yourself and tell us what excites you most about joining the Good Shepherd community.
Courtney Carrazana: Hey, how you doing? My name is Courtney Carrazana. I have been teaching for over eight years and I specialize in building connections with the youth. I can't wait to get started at Good Shepherd. What excites me the most is just being somewhere new, a new environment, new staff, new student body. Man, that just excites me to like no other. I cannot wait to build connections with these students and help them bring the best version out of themselves. One interesting thing about me that most people don't know is that I am Cuban. My dad is from Havana, Cuba. My mother is from here, Dallas Texas. So that's one interesting thing about me. The best advice that I've ever received was from my grandmother. She said always work on bringing out the best version of yourself daily and always work on progressing. If you're not progressing, then what are you doing it for? So my main focus in life is to progress. Always going up, not down. Forward, not backwards. The highlight of my summer is seeing my son finally take off his life jacket and swim. That excited me cause that's one thing that I never really got taught. Had to learn myself. So when my son said, "hey, I'm gonna take this life jacket off. Dad, I want to jump in." He did it, jumped in and just started swimming and man that just melted my heart. So that was the most exciting part of my summer just seeing my son grow and build confidence. Now he's jumping in the water, staying under the water. He thinks he's a pro. Still gotta get them lessons though. But that's what excited me the most. What brings me joy is helping others. I get the most joy out of helping others. Just be the best they can be or just helping others, period. Being a good, a good person is what brings me joy. That's me and I can't wait to meet you all and I can't wait to build these great connections, not only with the staff body, but the student body as well. See you all.
