{"id":154365,"date":"2026-02-06T23:22:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154365\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T23:22:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:22:05","slug":"intercontinental-instruction-february-2026-texas-tech-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154365\/","title":{"rendered":"Intercontinental Instruction | February 2026 | Texas Tech Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mindy Barrett brings her years of experience teaching theater and public speaking
\n to students across the globe.<\/p>\n

\t\tCREATORS<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Most teachers who do online instruction would probably agree that their biggest challenge
\n is forming relationships with students. Mindy Barrett<\/a> certainly feels that, particularly as she has pupils on two continents. She is Texas
\n Tech K-12\u2019s stateside high school theater arts instructor and the public speaking
\n teacher for students in the Brazil partner schools.<\/p>\n

\"MelindaMelinda Barrett<\/p>\n

This is Barrett\u2019s fourth year teaching internationally but her 12th year with Texas
\n Tech K-12. She recently retired from public education after 29 years, starting out
\n teaching speech communications in Arlington in the 1990s and moving to Lubbock in
\n the early 2000s, where she started teaching theater.<\/p>\n

Barrett was attracted to Texas Tech K-12 through friends who were teaching for the
\n distance learning school. She thought it would be a nice supplemental income while
\n she was teaching in public schools full-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, I found it fascinating that kids at that time were able to do school this way,\u201d
\n Barrett said. \u201cRemember, this was before many classes were online. This was before
\n COVID. When I started out, I didn’t even know there were international students. It
\n was just really interesting to me that kids would do a distance learning or online
\n program.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Barrett had the opportunity to travel to Brazil in December 2025, she was thrilled
\n to make the trip. Unfortunately, the students were already on summer break, but she
\n did get to visit face-to-face with teachers and administrators she had only met online.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MindyMindy trains teachers in Brazil.<\/p>\n

During the visit, they took videos of her with the teachers to share with the students
\n when the semester begins. She would also like to set up Teams meetings and actually
\n talk to the class.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust so they know that I’m a person, and not just some robot that grades things,\u201d
\n Barrett chuckled, \u201cand that, you know, I have feelings and I care about them and that
\n I want them to be successful. Because it\u2019s important for them to know who I am, not
\n just some stranger who\u2019s grading their papers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett also has tips for online learners \u2013 gleaned from her professional experience
\n and from working from home herself. She encourages students to have a set schedule,
\n wake up at the same time every day, and do their work. Just like in a brick-and-mortar
\n school, have some structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are especially true for online students, because if you’re just doing it when
\n you feel like it, you’re not going to get it done, because it’s not easy,\u201d she said,
\n shaking her head. \u201cEven teaching, doing my job from home, I set aside a certain amount
\n of time during the day to do my Texas Tech work, and if I don\u2019t, my \u2018lazy\u2019 takes over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MindyMindy with husband Danny\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mindy Barrett brings her years of experience teaching theater and public speaking to students across the globe. CREATORS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-154365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}