Meet the Actual Ms. Appleberry on ‘CoComelon Classroom’

Juliana Urtubey is the breakout star of the brand new live-action CoComelon spin-off, CoComelon Classroom, on YouTube. However Urtubey, a first-generation American born in Colombia, doesn’t simply play Ms. Appleberry, a preschool trainer, on TV. She put down roots as a trainer greater than a decade in the past, starting her profession as a bilingual normal training trainer.

Who knew then that she could be on the head of a really totally different classroom sooner or later? Let’s introduce you to the real-life trainer behind Ms. Appleberry.

Meet the Actual-Life Ms. Appleberry

It was in that first job that Urtubey met a fifth-grader who couldn’t learn. “However he was sensible,” Urtubey recollects. “It didn’t make sense to me.”

It planted the seed in her head to turn into a bilingual particular training trainer, which she did. And she or he didn’t cease rising–actually. At considered one of her final jobs in Las Vegas, she may inform the toll the dearth of security and beautification was taking up her college students. So all of them rolled up their sleeves and created a tiny backyard mattress. It grew to twenty,000 sq. toes.

“It was superb as a result of the scholars, their households, the neighborhood, and the group got here collectively to construct this backyard,” Urtubey says. “By means of these partnerships, relationships had been fashioned with the scholars—the vast majority of them first-generation from Central America, Mexico, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Language obstacles didn’t cease us from doing what we knew our college students wanted to thrive…for me, as a particular training trainer, it was one of the best ways that I may present an inclusive house for my college students. All people has a task in a backyard, and all people’s function issues.”

Advocating For Her College students

Urtubey’s classroom has grown by a number of thousand viewers on account of her new function on CoComelon Classroom. However earlier than she grew to become Ms. Appleberry, Urtubey was the 2021 Nationwide Trainer of the Yr, permitting her to shine a highlight on a platform that training needs to be “joyful” and “simply.”

“I regularly am one of many solely Latina academics who’ve had an identical expertise with my college students being born in a unique nation and serving to their mother and father navigate a brand new system,” Urtubey says. “Advocacy has all the time been folded into my instructing, particularly as a particular ed trainer. It’s important to advocate loads on your college students and their proper to take part on the whole training.”

For Urtubey, advocacy additionally means reframing. For example, she’s proud to have coined the time period “linguistically gifted” to explain college students whose first language is one thing aside from English—college students like her.

“Our college students have lots of ability units, so we reframed it as being linguistically gifted,” Urtubey says. “How can we invite these presents to come back in?”

Urtubey has acquired some high-profile invitations pre-CoComelon. In 2022, President Joe Biden appointed her to the President’s Advisory Fee on Advancing Instructional Fairness, Excellence, and Financial Alternative for Hispanics. The appointment has a strict code of ethics to not say something representing the President, however Urtubey says it’s a task “past her wildest goals.”

“It reveals me that elevating academics is such an essential name to motion proper now,” she says.

Exterior of Washington, D.C., Urtubey additionally accepted an invite from YouTube to present a keynote speech to creators about how she makes use of the platform within the classroom.

“I talked concerning the want for pleasure, curiosity, connection, and participatory viewing,” Urtubey says. “It’s not simply, ‘ I will watch and disconnect, however I will watch and join with the group, and I will study. I will really feel this pleasure—creating that connection {that a} trainer can create with college students.”

Rising Her Inclusive ‘Classroom’

The individuals at Moonbug Leisure had been curious, too—about having Urtubey be part of their new live-action sequence. When Urtubey took the decision, she anticipated them to ask her to function a content material reviewer. Whereas being part of successful franchise could sound like a dream come true, Urtubey adored instructing. So, it took some convincing. Spoiler alert: It was efficient.

“I used to be fairly excited as a result of elements of my creativity had been simply coming alive after we had been planning among the preliminary concepts for the present,” Urtubey says. “I felt like a trainer in our planning periods, and I felt linked to the viewer…it is like my classroom acquired loads greater.”

Urtubey is aware of her story and sheer presence on a well-liked present can be about one thing greater.

“On a consultant degree, the concept a Latina generally is a kid’s first trainer is gorgeous to me,” Urtubey says. ”We signify a really small portion of academics throughout this nation. For teenagers to grasp that anyone like me is a trainer is thrilling—notably for different children who appear like me. However I believe it’s thrilling for everyone.”

Urtubey can be excited to make use of her instructing abilities and platform to advertise inclusivity and curiosity on a bigger stage.

“I’m utilizing inclusive practices that I’ve discovered as a trainer which might be efficient with college students for his or her studying and growth of vanity, abilities, and government perform,” Urtubey says. “Questioning and social-emotional wellness have been transmitted into, and that is been knowledgeable by lots of and lots of of youngsters that I have been fortunate sufficient to show.”

Appearing, Whereas At all times Educating

Urtubey is probably not an actress by commerce. Nonetheless, her roots in instructing give her the flexibility to attach with the viewers, and that shines by with every episode. 

“There are quite a few moments the place Ms. Appleberry appears to be like straight on the digicam and speaks with the house viewer, inviting them to hitch her,” says Natascha Crandall, PhD, a psychologist and educator who gives insights and enter for CoComelon Classroom. “Whereas the present has an academic spine and so many robust studying moments, it feels identical to playtime.”

It’s playtime for Urtubey, too. She’s embraced the problem of interacting with some relatively particular college students—the animated ones, like the beloved JJ.

“Working with the animated characters required me to be playful as a result of the way in which they do it’s film magic,” Urtubey says. “It’s required lots of creativeness on my half and lots of interplay with the individuals taking part in [and] holding the house for JJ. That introduced me a real sense of authenticity. Once you see me taking a look at JJ and laughing, I am genuinely concerned about JJ as a toddler. It’s really easy for me to consider any scholar of mine and superimpose how that scholar would reply and be engaged in that play. That was the good half.”

Precise people, together with award-winning actress and mom Keke Palmer, additionally be a part of her on the present.

“I bear in mind Akeelah and the Bee and the way important that film was when it comes to illustration,” Urtubey says. “Then, to search out out her son, Leo, loves CoComelon and that she would come and assistance is sing Rocket Ship Track was thrilling.”

If the powers that be are listening, Urtubey would like to have fellow Colombian Karol G on sooner or later. However whereas Urtubey is just too humble to confess it, she’s turn into a star in her personal proper. Lecturers electronic mail her with movies and notes about how they’re utilizing the brand new sequence of their lecture rooms, making it clear she’s turn into a family identify (although the pronunciation may have a bit work, however it’s proof errors may be lovely). 

“I acquired this electronic mail from a trainer that made me soften,” Urtubey says. “Within the video, the kid is looking me ‘Ms. Flappleberry.’ Lecturers are sending me questions. They’re collaborating. I believe that it is a wonderful factor that I used to be capable of give academics yet one more useful resource.”

It’s like she by no means left the classroom in spite of everything. 

New episodes of CoComelon Classroom debut Thursdays on the CoComelon Classroom YouTube Channel.