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Pedro Gonzalez didn't grow up dreaming to be a teacher.

There was no career epiphany when he graduated from Bowie High School in 2000. He even dabbled in studying theater while attending the University of Maryland, College Park.

"I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do in college," said the 27-year-old Bowie resident.

What there was, however, was a Puerto Rican dad who knew his son would make a great instructor.

"He loves being around people," said Jose Gonzalez, Pedro's father and a senior information officer at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. "He's always been active with youth, and is involved in church activities."

Pedro Gonzalez said his father's influence was one of the reasons he ended up graduating from the University of Maryland in 2006 with degrees in teaching and Spanish language and literature.

Three years later, Gonzalez is the chairman of the world language department at Samuel Ogle Middle School. Granted, as the lone foreign language teacher, it's a tiny department, but father Jose is proud nonetheless. And more so since Pedro was recently honored as Bowie's January Teacher of the Month.

All you had to do was attend the Feb. 1 award ceremony at City Hall to see that there's something different about Gonzalez. And it wasn't the stud earrings in his left ear.

It was the meeting room at City Hall: packed full of students, both current and former, some holding signs, all of them giddy over the fact that Gonzalez was receiving the award.

"That was a little strange," Gonzalez admitted recently during an interview at Samuel Ogle Middle School. "I just teach Spanish. It makes you feel like a small celebrity, almost."

Gonzalez has been teaching Spanish to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Samuel Ogle since 2006. He was born in Puerto Rico, but has lived in Bowie since he was 13-years-old.

According to some of his students, Gonzalez is liked in part because he uses creative educational activities. On a recent afternoon, his eighth-grade students were given map-like directions in Spanish and told to locate certain pictures hung up in the school. Gonzalez had stuck up street names like "Avenida de las Artes" in various hallways. The students then had to take digital pictures of themselves at the locations as proof they had correctly read the directions.

"He's really fun," said 13-year-old Jessica Bodolay. "He really connects with us."

The group of four girls who identified all of the correct locations first won some G-bucks — fake Cuban pesos that are part of a point system Gonzalez incorporated to reward student effort.

"It's like all they want is G-bucks," Gonzalez said. "I've created monsters."

Gonzalez said he was surprised to learn that he had won the city's Teacher of the Month award, which includes a $100 U.S. Savings Bond and a catered lunch he'll share with Brady and the two students that nominated him, eighth-grader Delila Angulo and seventh-grader Elizabeth Voigt.

Samuel Ogle principal Kathleen Brady said Gonzalez was very deserving of the award.

"His innovative style and motivational instructional technique certainly move the children forward in a fun and interesting way," Brady said.

As for Gonzalez, he still seemed surprised with the award.

"I never really knew how much I was appreciated until this happened," Gonzalez said.

E-mail Sarah Richards at srichards@gazette.net.