After Ms. Marcela Hibdon (Spanish) retired at the end of the fall 2024 semester, Ms. Lori Foster (Spanish) began teaching Manual’s Dual Credit and AP Spanish classes. Hired to take over Foster’s classes, Mr. Steele Spangler started teaching at the beginning of the spring 2025 semester.
Spangler now teaches Honors Spanish 2 and 3. This is his first position as a teacher, although he’s had his sights set on a job in education since he was 12 years old.
“My uncle, who teaches Spanish at Creighton University in Nebraska, came to visit my family and he corrected my pronunciation of several soccer players that I definitely looked up to as a kid that were from Spanish-speaking countries,” Spangler said. “I thought that was the coolest thing on Earth, and I decided right there that I was going to teach Spanish and I’ve just decided to stick with that plan ever since.”
However, Spangler wasn’t one for Spanish when he was in high school. A self-described “not very good student,” he focused more of his time on sports like soccer and cross country, than his foreign language classes.
“I think that if I had actually just given some effort, I could have done well,” Spangler said, “but I didn’t enjoy high school Spanish, and I definitely didn’t enjoy the method that it was taught.”
Now that he’s a teacher, Spangler prioritizes speaking and listening as language acquisition methods. To him, understanding how his students learn and the best pathways for them is paramount.
“What I want my students to get out of class is that it’s okay to make mistakes,” Spangler said.“If we’re focusing on those long run goals, then we’re going to be able to accomplish what we need to accomplish. We’re going to do what we’re supposed to do.”
Spangler grew up in Seattle, Washington. After graduating high school in 2017, he went on a mission trip to Mexico City with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In high school, he worked several jobs and saved his earnings so he could live in Mexico City without needing a job.
“It’s a really, really cool experience. I learned Spanish in about four months. I was fluent, just like the natives—and I have since lost that accent that I used to have when I was there,” Spangler said. “I’ve been back a few times since then just to visit and see all the wonderful people that I met while I was there.”
Spangler lived in Mexico City for two years, and returned to the United States in 2019. He went to college at Brigham Young University-Idaho, where he met his wife, Lily Spangler. The couple moved to Louisville in 2024 after L. Spangler got a job at Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E).
“I love doing anything with my wife,” Spangler said. “Any board game, card game, going for drives, playing with our dog. Most of what we do right now in our free time is talking about our dog, or playing with our dog, or trying to do something together without our dog interrupting.”
Despite his recent move, Spangler has one message for his students:
“I want my students to know that they are more important and their learning process is more important to me than, you know, whatever I’ve got going on.”
