NORTHRIDGE : Student Teacher to Receive Award

A San Fernando High School graduate who has returned to her home turf to teach will be presented the Dr. Max Klingbeil Award for Outstanding Student Teaching at Cal State Northridge today.

Carrie Castro Armour, 33, is a rarity in the CSUN education program: She is one of only two Hispanic student teachers out of 35 in the social studies program, and she works in an area where many schools are 50% to 60% Hispanic.

David Bidna, CSUN education professor, said it was Armour’s ability to relate to students with backgrounds such as her own that helped earn her the award. “She is very sensitive to who the kids are, yet she insists that they learn,” he said.

Armour recently finished a semester teaching at Sepulveda Magnet Junior High and is now teaching at Monroe High School in North Hills--both schools with something of a “tough reputation,” she said, and both reminiscent of her past.

Though most of Armour’s adult years were spent in Santa Barbara and Washington, D. C., she grew up in Pacoima, near a public housing project--living, she said, in an “alcoholic environment” and raised, for the most part, by her older siblings.

“I can relate to these kids. I didn’t have an Ozzie-and-Harriet background,” she said.

Even so, student teaching has not always come easily for the 5-foot, 3-inch Armour.

“Some of these kids are six feet tall!” she said. “I’m looking up at them, shaking my finger, and I’m laughing at myself inside.”

Armour has spent nearly four years attending school part time while working in a hospital. For the first few years, she supported herself and her 8-year-daughter alone, after leaving her former husband, who didn’t want her to teach, she said. She has since married and is looking for a teaching job.

The award carries with it a $750 prize. Armour said she plans to use the money to pay bills, noting that student teaching doesn’t pay.