Mr. Velazquez was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He took AP classes and graduated from Bell High School, Bell, CA in 1992. He honorably served in the US Navy from 1993-1995 with an honorable discharge as a third-class petty officer. He later received his BA degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara. During that time he studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain for one year (1998-1999) taking coursework in Spanish at the Universidad de Sevilla. He has been teaching mainly English Language Arts since 2003 with one year stints in Mexico (2001-2002) and Brazil (2004-2005). He's been teaching for Banning Unified School District since 2006. He enjoys traveling, telling stories with moral/ethical lessons, playing with his dog Plato, rolling up his sleeves and helping students learn, and using technology in the classroom. He's currently working on his master's in education with educational technology! He enjoys teaching and pulling in ideas and references from his varied background and experiences. He once took a theater's workshop in college and enjoys acting in class once in a while to make student learning fun, insightful, meaningful, and at times entertaining for comedic effect. Happy students learn better!