Little Known Fact About Mr. Martinez: He Is German

Mr. Martinez is a well-known teacher at Carter High School. But what a lot of people don’t know about him is that he actually grew up in Germany. 

Martinez grew up in Heidelberg Germany and it turns out that life in Germany isn’t too different from life in America.For Mr. Martinez, he had this to say about life there, ¨It was different. Two different cultures living together, American and German.¨  He recalls Germany being: ¨very unique¨ and ¨a great place to grow¨.

Martinez was born and raised in Germany and moved to America by the time he was 21 years old. He talks about the most noticeable differences between the two different countries,¨There were cultural differences. Like a culture shock. (it) Took me about a year to get used to it¨.

After teaching for so long in America Martinez does say he has thought about teaching at his old high school in Germany.

Mr. Martinez does come in as a big help for a lot of students and especially for Lina Loock, a German foreign exchange student that attended Carter High School in the 2019-20 school year. Lina comments on American teaching being ¨not that different¨ but she does say, ¨I had to adjust to the teachers talking English but I understood a lot after a few weeks¨.

Lina recalls Martinez being a big help for her adjusting to America saying, “Yes, Mr. Martinez for sure made the school environment more comfortable for me. I mean he’s German too. It felt like a part of my home was there since I didn’t get that many chances to talk German in the US. On my first day two girls showed the school to me and we sat in Mr. Martinez’s classroom for about 30 minutes just talking and that was just great.”