Teaching Assistant Spotlight: Leslie Reyes

Humanities Experience Inspires Curriculum for Future Educator

What is it like to be a TA with the Humanities Research Lab? We recently sat down with Leslie Reyes, a teaching assistant with the Humanities Research Lab, to learn more about her experience. Leslie is a junior (Class of 2024) at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where she is majoring in History and minoring in Secondary Education.

Interview by Tavion Brooks, David F. Prindable Intern

Why did you apply to be a teaching assistant for a Humanities Research Lab course? What interested you about the opportunity?

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Leslie Reyes headshot
Leslie Reyes, Teaching Assistant

I applied—well, technically, it was more a referral rather than applying— because Professor Ramirez was my professor a year ago. I took History 312, and I kept in touch with her. I was very into the course, and even after, I was a part of the immigrant service project with the community that I [worked alongside] during the course.

She asked if I was open to becoming her [teaching] assistant, and I said yes. I am also a secondary ed minor, so I am also going to be a teacher. This was a good experience for me as I also had prior experience with tutoring and teaching. I [have] taught every single grade level at this point, so this was another experience to add on.

Can you briefly describe the course you are working with? What kinds of work or projects do you do as a TA for this course?

When I took “Immigrant America,” I liked the approach that the professor had. It was great because you did not just get the perspective of white individuals; you had people from all over the United States. I personally liked the way she explained the class and learning about everyone, not [one] specific group. When I got to [work with] the communities within Champaign—we have [many] immigrants in Champaign—I found it very intriguing. It is good to see students who had no prior information about Champaign-Urbana going into volunteer places and starting to see like, “Oh it is very expansive.”

How has your understanding of community-based research evolved through your work with the Humanities Research Lab course?

Now that I've taken the class, it's a whole different environment. I like it because we've changed a lot of things we do now. When I was in the class, it was in just the last eight weeks that we got [to work with] our community partners. When we started the course, three weeks into the class, you get assigned to your groups and to your community partners. When you start interacting with people, you get that firsthand experience of what it's like to be with these communities. You have a better understanding of like, “Okay, this is not just a project for class.”

You’re interacting with people for longer time, and you're get a better idea who they are and understand their story. I really like how students are coming into the class and talking about the community partners: how they have great meetings, how they're interacting with people. That’s why I continued with the program. I wanted to be here more because I felt really bonded to the communities.

Why should undergraduate students apply to take an HRL course?

Students are prone [to not] do volunteer work. We don’t know if it is going to be allowed, or we don’t really have time to do it. If it's implemented within a course, like HRL, it gives us more time to be more aware of what communities are going on outside of like Champaign Urbana. If students really want to have the exposure of like, “What's going on outside of school?", you get that firsthand experience of the real world and understanding that there's more than just the University.

How will you apply what you have learned from this experience to your future endeavors?

My major’s History, but I also want to be a secondary education teacher. This experience is preparing me a lot because I'm going into a field where it's very controversial right now, especially when you have all these people telling you that you can't teach a certain curriculum. But it's like, you guys are leaving out important communities that matter. They made this country as well.

I always get questions from my history classes, “Did you learn this in high school?”

And I'm always like, “No, I did not know about this.”

I want to teach my future students the value of different groups and their representation because I feel like history lacks a lot of representation of minority groups and marginalized groups.