Our KNX Hero of the Week, Darcy Blake, was named as one of the "2026 Orange County Teachers of the Year.”
“It was a shock. I had this horde of people coming into my room while I was teaching, and I'm looking at the people, kind of my eyes shifting back and forth. I almost had to sit down, let's put it that way,” she recalled to Heroes host Heather Jordan.
Blake just started her 21st year of teaching at Ladera Vista Junior High School of the Arts in Fullerton. Blake teaches English Language and Composition, honors English Language Arts for eighth grade, and creative writing.
“The best thing is standing up with the class and seeing a student all of a sudden understand a skill or a concept,” she said. “There's a difference in their whole demeanor, their whole, it's like the outline of their body changes and the light in their eyes changes and it's fabulous.”
Her students aren’t the only ones learning.
“I listen to them and teach them multiple perspectives, but then I get a new perspective from students who come into my classroom when we're discussing and sharing ideas and things like that,” Blake explained.
She makes it her mission to help her seventh-and eighth-graders understand themselves.
When it comes to ensuring her students are learning, Blake likes to “diagnose” their learning by asking students questions to figure out what they are or aren’t understanding. She explains how this helps her be able to approach her students individually and help them learn better.
Her number one piece of advice to everybody is to not be afraid.
“When I was growing up, I was afraid to talk to professors and teachers and everyone, and that's why I try and create a safe environment for my students because I don't want them to be afraid to say something, to ask a question,” Blake said. “So I think going forward in order to find what you really want to do, you have to be brave enough to take that risk and not be afraid to jump into something.”
She also tells students to study abroad in college, if they have the opportunity to do so. Blake did for one year and she said it opened up her entire world.
Check out all our KNX Heroes here.