Students walk into a dimly lit classroom with lights strung around the classroom, posters hung on the walls and a snack cabinet rolled up next to the teachers desk. Karlos Coria is substituting in mid-year for English teacher Diana Glaser. A second year in his graduate program at George Mason University, Coria tries his best to create an amiable and enjoyable classroom setting for his students.
“There’s more class participation with him than [before he came],” junior Michaela Chuch said.
While he’s familiarizing himself with his new classroom, Coria is also balancing his studies for a master’s in secondary education. Coria has not always been committed to teaching, however. He had thoughts of becoming an immigration lawyer before he found what aligned best with his interests.
“I want to teach because it makes an impact on the world by constantly developing the next generation of people,” Coria said. “In my junior and senior year, I fell in love with English; I had really good teachers, so I decided I wanted to teach it.”
Not completely new to McLean, Coria has already served as a substitute teacher in the history department. Then in the fall of 2024, he was connected with English teacher Amber Smith.
“I was working at Starbucks and a senior from McLean was working at Starbucks with me,” Coria said. “We would talk about books, and she [said I] should meet her English teacher. So I came in, I met Mrs. Smith and we slowly developed a relationship.”
Part of Coria’s master’s program is to collect clinical hours that required students to observe teachers, prompting him to reach back out to ask Smith to become his mentor, in which she agreed.
“He usually came into my first period class, and I taught a couple of lessons with him,” English teacher Amber Smith said. “He just became a part of the community. He’s extremely extroverted and wasn’t shy about asking student questions and meeting with them at all—he was always really curious.”
Having already been familiar with McLean, Coria found it an easy decision to apply when a teaching position opened up halfway through the year.
“I love the students at McLean,” Coria said. “Because I already had experience working with them for a year, it was a no-brainer to take my official chance to work here.”
Coria is striving to apply his own philosophy of teaching in his new position—principles that have been shaped by his own experiences and mentors.
“I had a very rough time during [my teenage years] personally, and school was one of the only places where I felt comfortable,” Coria said. “My English teachers in my junior and senior year made me want to come to school at a time when I hated doing anything. And then my [masters program] has really drilled into us that student voice, student choice and students wanting to learn is just as important as us wanting to teach them.”
Even though Coria emphasizes student comfort while learning, inheriting a class in the middle of the year when students have already grown accustomed to a certain classroom setting comes with its challenges.
“What is common for my long-term position is coming in as the outsider,” Coria said. “I’m coming in as this new person who now has authority over these students, but they don’t know me. So the constant hurdle I have is building relationships and establishing that I’m here for them.”
Coria’s initiative and approach to teaching has led others around him to recognize his potential.
“Coria is someone who has high standards for himself and also for his students—that’s something that not all new teachers have,” Smith said. “He doesn’t look at teaching as just a job, and I think that’s a big difference.”
Coria wants to focus on fostering a welcoming learning space where his students are able to feel at home.
“My goal is to fill Ms. Glaser’s shoes as well as I can,” Coria said. “I want all of her students to end the year strong. I want my class to be a space that all students want to be in—a place where you feel safe and comfortable to come ask questions. If anything’s going on and you can’t do an assignment, I want to be the person that you feel comfortable coming to to talk about it.”
