It's been a year since teachers were handed an unprecedented challenge: Educate students in new ways amid the backdrop of a pandemic. In this comic series, we'll illustrate one educator's story each week from now until the end of the school year.

Episode 9

In this week's comic, Alvaro Salas discusses the challenges of starting his teaching career in a school year that was unlike any other. He teaches middle school social studies at Bonham Academy in San Antonio.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Caption

"They say your first year is always the hardest or the craziest, and I went into it with that mindset, and it just happened to be the year that we were hit by a pandemic." — Alvaro Salas, teacher in San Antonio. / NPR