Charlotte Gbomina is an IB Spanish teacher whose students say “is strong and powerful” even while teaching a lesson. According to her students, her classroom is where free thoughts can be shared, world issues can be discussed, and students feel safe. Her gift of inspiring students comes from her upbringing and, in one familiar place North Town. She talked about her experience here in north town, she comments “Well, I graduated in 2013. And I would say my experience here was, I guess, varied. I was a part of a lot of different clubs. Bill Ford, was sort of the IB. So I guess like, Yeah, I did a lot in high school. I do a lot in general, period”. She said she enjoyed her time in high school “I look back on high school. And I have no regrets. Like, I actually, like, enjoyed the classes.”

Her inspiration to become the teacher she is today is because of her parents. Starting in Africa her parents did not receive a formal education because they couldn’t afford to go to school. “Unlike America, where we are provided free education, many countries require parents to pay for their children to attend school,” Gbomina said. Seeing her parents not being able to take care of certain situations because they were illiterate made her value education and inspired her to be a teacher, “I had to pretty much take care of my family in terms of like, like, paying bills, like doing whatever you don’t think like to be able to do like, I had to do that because they didn’t know how to read or write. So that encouraged me to want to be a teacher if you’re gonna give back so that students can be able to do things for themselves. So I guess my parents inspired me to be a teacher and also like the teachers that I had in high school in college along the way. And I felt like enforced and like, yes, I want to be a teacher”.

Gbomina teaches IB Spanish, is a coach for the cross-country team and girls’ track, and she is a sponsor for the National Honors Society. With a large number of community activities, she participates in, work-life balance has taken center stage. Balance is essential to her life because she does want to burn out. She says “I do things like when, like early instead of waiting till last minute to do all of that. Because being a coach, being a sponsor, Being a teacher being whatever, like you need to balance all of that.”
Gbomina has aspirations for the future to become an administrator she says, “So I still do want to be administrator but I want to do at least like 10 years in the classroom, get some experience there to like experience different students because this is my fifth year of teaching. And I feel like I’m not ready to become an administrator yet because like there is a lot that goes on with being an administrator. But yeah, in the future, I definitely do want to do that.”