Julie Madigan has taught English as a Second Language at De Anza College for 10 years, and she still loves it.
She has wanted to become a teacher since she was a little girl. Of course many children have wanted to become an astronaut, singer, teacher or pilot, but Madigan pursued and made her dream come true.
She worked for a magazine called “Sassy,” a teen magazine where she was the editor. Even though she enjoyed it, she thought that she would be better in helping students improve their English.
She taught English in the Czech Republic when she realized that teaching English was what she wanted to keep doing. So she came to De Anza to start teaching ESL, “I started and stayed at De Anza,” she said.
ESL 272, Advanced Reading and Vocabulary, is her favorite class to teach. She has been teaching it since she started and says she would never change its structure.
For Madigan, De Anza is a great place to teach because of the cultural diversity on campus. She loves to have students in her class who come from different countries, because each of them brings another point of view, another opinion and different ideas.
She appreciates students who don´t come to class just to pass it, but who really get into the topics. She talks about students upon whom she has left a mark. She has stayed in touch with many students, including some now at UC Berkeley and UCLA.
She keeps working as an instructor because she believes she´s able to inspire students, to make them think critically, and to help them consider new points of view. She teaches because it is her passion, as any of her students could verify.
Students say professors like Julie Madigan make them want to come to school and enjoy each and every class.
Her favorite novel for the ESL 272 class is “Fried Green Tomatoes.” She really enjoys talking about the story, the characters, the background and the themes that appear in it, such as the Great Depression, homelessness and sexuality, topics generally not discussed in literature classes.
She challenges students to argue about their literary standpoints and encourages them to bring forth a new outgoing side.
For fun she likes to run. Because she lives in Santa Cruz she also loves to walk by the beach. Her active life includes her family of 2 children (Shayla, 2, and Sophie, 4 ½ years old) and her husband.
“I´m not very adventurous” she said, but she likes to try out new adventures, such as when she went to Costa Rica with her family she tried out zip climbing, “I always try to push it a little bit,” she said.
