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Excellent Educator: Eden Prairie's Kristin Bastidas

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Loud voices are definitely encouraged in one classroom at Eden Prairie High School.

The teacher gets students on their feet and yelling in Spanish.

Kristin Bastidas has a high energy and fun way to teach a foreign language. That's why she is this week's Excellent Educator.

"We start class at 7:50 and that is so exhausting but she makes it fun for us," said Ethan Jones, one of her freshman students.

Bastidas has been teaching Spanish for seven years at Eden Prairie High. Her passion to teach others began when she was a high school student herself tutoring her peers.

"I remember the moment I helped a student go from a C- to a B+ in one test, he wanted to pay me for helping him and I was like no I'm doing this for free," she said. "Just that feeling of him improving and him enjoying the subject matter as much as me that was golden."

But for Bastidas the payoff doesn't end in the classroom. She likes knowing her students will use their Spanish speaking skills later in life whether in travel or a career.

"It can help you get a wider variety of jobs especially here in the Twin Cities with so many Spanish speakers," said Bastidas.

Bastidas' love of Spanish may be rubbing off on her students, but it's clear they've made an impact on her too.

"These are the most wonderful students that I've ever taught," she said. "They're so nice, they're so genuine and so hard working and I wish I wasn't crying, but you guys are the greatest," she told her class.

Bastidas has a lot on her plate this year. She is the first Spanish teacher to take over the Spanish Immersion Program at the high school level in the Eden Prairie school district.

The program was established in the elementary school and the middle school, now this school year the first classes of students are in high school.

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