Karen Lock teaches first grade at Esperanza Elementary. She says she thinks she always wanted to be a teacher, even when she herself was in elementary school.

Lock really felt the calling to teach when she had kids of her own. You might even say, Lock loves to unlock kids potential!

“When I did stay home with my kids (and her nieces and nephews), I loved watching them learn,” Lock explains. She says she loved seeing the excitement on her kids’ faces. She still gets that feeling when she sees her students learn something new.

That’s one reason that Lock enjoys teaching first grade, which she has done for eight years. “I like to see their excitement about learning,” she says. First graders are “ready and eager to learn.”

Lock says she enjoys teaching her students math and English, which were also her favorite subjects in school. “For first graders math is hard, it’s all new,” she explains. Spelling tests can be funny, she notes, as kids sound out new words and sometimes come up with creative, and at times perplexing, letter combinations. Luckily, Lock likes to do puzzles!Lock was born in Michigan and was the youngest of six kids. She moved to Arizona when she was 13.

Lock graduated from NAU with a bachelor’s degree in Education. She has a 21-year-old son and a daughter in middle school. During her free time, Lock enjoys going for walks, yoga, reading, and playing games and doing puzzles with her family.

She also enjoys music. “I like to sing and dance. All day I play music in the classroom,” reports Lock.

Lock was nominated by student Lilah. In typical first-grade fashion, Lilah has a straight-forward and to the point message: “My teacher is great because she teaches us.”

Lock says she tries to let her students know that “it’s okay to make a mistake.” Even adults make mistakes, Lock notes, and kids should not be afraid to make mistakes. In fact, it is important that kids do make some mistakes.

“By making a mistake, that is how they’re learning,” says Lock.