fulfillment and balance 

By Sofia Jimenez

Life for students includes juggling academics, sports and homelife. But students' lives are no different to teachers. Teachers as well have to plan lessons, be ready to teach and attend to their homelifes. 

Jorge Salgado, a physical education teacher in Yerba Buena High school, knows how it is to juggle work and homelife. He is a physical education coach and a new father to his son. He is someone who is considered dedicated to both his profession and home life.

Growing up, Salgado had always dreamed about being in the place he is in. He had the goals of buying his own home, getting married and having a child in which he has accomplished all. 

Now a goal Salgado puts for himself is to raise his son right. Like most students, his goal was to graduate and achieve his goal of getting his masters degree, make his immigrant parents proud and break the stereotypes that were put on to him. In which he did. 

Salgado: “ I wanted to prove people wrong more than anything else. It was just like if you told me I couldn't do it then Ima be like alright then ima show you I can. And yeah man just graduated high school went to college and went against what people thought about me”

Salgado, 36-years-old, is someone who listens to students in whatever they have going on apart from teaching sports to them. He acknowledges that students can have a lot on their plate and be overwhelmed with school activities or work.

Salgado:  “ I understand you as students and what's on your plate and the course work and the course load that you have is tough”

Through all this he is understanding towards his students. As someone who has had Salgado as a teacher my freshman year, he would always check up on me and the rest of his students on how they were doing. No matter the day Salgado would check up on his students. 

Balancing home life and work life can be a struggle a little bit because Salgado has the pressure of being a great parent to his son but at the same time being dedicated to his job. Regardless, Salgado tries to have the perfect balance of being the teacher he wants to be and doing his job the way he wants to do it, while being a great father to his son at the same time by managing his time well. When Salgado’s day ends he goes home to his family. He dedicates most of his time to his son and spending time with him.

Salgado: “.I get home, wash my hands, pick my kid up, play with him, feed him sometimes depending on if it's at that point and then it’s put him down and my wife comes hangs out with him.”

After doing so Salgado gets time for himself while he tries to relax and get the rest needed for the next day.

Salgado has a big love for sports outside of work as well. He played indoor soccer for some time but stopped recently doing so. But his life consisted of flag football for approximately 10 years in which he stopped a couple years ago.

As of now Salgado has a love for golf. Even though Salgado in High School did not envision himself playing golf, now golf has run his life for the past 10 years. Salgado practices his love for golf whenever he gets the chance to. 

Salgado: “ Golf has kind of taken over my world just cause it has so much less impact on my body.”

All though Salgado is still working on balancing and being his best for his job and family at the same time. He looks forward to the future. His love for sports runs his life so something Salgado is excited for in the future is for his son to play sports. It's a bond he would love to share with his son, teach him what he knows and is passionate about. 

Salgado:“ I'll be real with you like sports run my life so to be able to kind of share that with somebody else like my wife is big into sports as well. So now to see somebody get better at something is gonna be fun for me.”

Overall Salgado thrives everyday to create stability in his life to give his best and all to his students and his family at home. Even though there are struggles like there are for students as well Salgado manages to be better no matter what.

Salgado:  “I know I  got to put forth the effort here at work for you guys as students. I need to make sure I come ready but at the same time i gotta balance my personal life and my homelife. “