Journalism's Justin Hjelm a teacher students can like

MATTAWA — Justin Hjelm stands outside classroom number 69 at Wahluke High School every morning to greet his students as they walk into class, always with a smile and a coffee mug in his hand.

A journalism teacher at Wahluke, Hjelm (pronounced Yelm) is well liked by his students, but he didn’t intend for this to be his career. He originally wanted to become a journalist and at one time worked at corporate Starbucks.

Hjelm worked in IT (information technology) at Starbucks for four years as a data analyst. Then he decided to leave because he didn’t like the job and because he wanted to make an impact on society.

Hjelm was born and raised in Kirkland. He was a first baseman on the Lake Washington baseball team during his high school years. He said his team wasn’t the best and neither was he, but he enjoyed being a baseball player.

Hjelm, who graduated from Lake Washington in 2001, was a well-behaved student. He earned good grades and always tried to avoid trouble.

“I was a rule follower,” he said.

After high school, Hjelm enrolled at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He was looking for a small school with good academic programs – near the beach. He graduated with a degree in communication studies.

Rhetoric was Hjelm’s favorite class at college. It taught him how to speak well and taught him to be a better person. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion through speech and writing, he said.

After Hjelm finished college, his first employment was in the IT department at the Starbucks corporate headquarters. He worked with computers but, as time passed, he started to dislike his job, and he decided to go back to college and become a teacher.

“I left my job because I didn’t agree with the corporate mindset,” he said.

Hjelm returned to college at Northwest University, located in Kirkland, to get a Masters Degree in education.

“I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to make an impact on society,” he said.

After Hjelm graduated from Northwest University, he started to apply for jobs all over the state. Wahluke School District was the first to offer him a job. He started working in the 2013-2014 school year, and he plans to teach at Wahluke indefinitely.

Although Mattawa is not very well known, Hjelm had a bit of history with it. When he was a kid, his father took him to Cougar football games at Washington State University. On their way back to Kirkland, they stopped at Desert Aire to play golf.

“I remember that I would sweat a lot,” he said.

Although Hjelm likes it here in Mattawa, he said it would be helpful to learn Spanish. The majority of his students speak Spanish, and it would benefit him to speak the language as well.

When Hjelm started teaching at Wahluke, it was a big difference for him weather-wise. He was used to the rainy and cloudy weather in Seattle. Even though he was familiar with Mattawa, he was not prepared for the heat.

Hjelm started out as a geography and history teacher. Journalism was added the second month. That worked out fine because he had studied journalism somewhat, and he had done some writing for Seattle area newspapers.

“All the classes I teach are fun in their own way,” he said.

Hjelm looks at journalism as “the reporting of the news,” how the public stays informed about the world. As an educator who also teaches history, he hopes that his journalism students don’t look at journalism as a class where they write a lot. Instead, he hopes they see the value of it.

Coming from a family of teachers, Hjelm seeks feedback from his students so that he can learn to be a better teacher. He really tries to get student input on his teaching.

“I like the way Mr. Hjelm teaches because it makes me think in a different perspective” said Wendy Castro, one of Hjelm’s freshmen journalism students. “He also really impacts the way I write. Journalism has taught me that there is more than one way to write. It’s good to be curious. After all, everyone has a story.”

Cecilia Rincon never had Hjelm before, and she says he is a nice teacher and helps others when they need him.

“You can always tell that he is a very nice and happy person by the way he greets everyone,” she said. “You will see him almost every day standing outside his room with a cup of coffee, greeting his students as they pass by.”

“Mr. Hjelm is a great teacher,” student Maria Abarca said. “I like the fact that he is vigilant with his students. He is always making sure that we understand his class and that we complete every assignment.”

Teachers know Hjelm too – the funny side, that is. They say he is “really good at trivia,” and hilariously refer to him as “a misguided soccer fan.” He likes the sport like most Americans like football.

Waking up with a good cup of coffee, having time to read a good book and spending time with family and friends is a good day in the life of Justin Hjelm.

Unless there are sports to watch on TV or at Century Link Field. He is a huge fan of soccer and football, specifically the Seattle Seahawks.