Where it comes from
I learned at home first
I was homeschooled through high school, which gave me real freedom but also made me acutely aware of what absence of structure can cost. I didn't set foot in a formal classroom until community college. Those experiences taught me that quality public education is a right, not a privilege, and its absence leaves marks.
Later, as a parent, I spent years helping run a parent co-op forest school and a weekly play group. When a kid was struggling, our families added support instead of pushing them out. Now I bring those lessons to my kids' public school.
Commitments
What I believe
Culture is the core, not an add-on
Culture is the operating system through which students process new learning. I bring an ethnic studies perspective to every subject area: whose knowledge is centered, whose stories are told, and what the lesson assumes about who belongs in the room.
Trust makes rigor possible
Trust is not separate from demanding academic work; it is what makes rigor possible. That means safety, belonging, and a classroom students feel is theirs.
One bar, many paths
I design for the full range of learners actually in the room: students reading below grade level and above it, students acquiring English, students with IEPs. The scaffolds shift in form but not in expectation.
Students do the thinking
Students do the intellectual work instead of watching me do it. Writing has a real destination, like opinion letters to decision-makers, because 3rd through 5th graders are fully capable of advocacy, and most of them have never been asked.
Curiosity, not removal
When a child's behavior disrupts the classroom, I respond with curiosity rather than removal. Children don't dysregulate in a vacuum. There is a need that is unmet, and removal addresses the disruption without touching the cause.
Families are first teachers
Families are a child's first and most enduring teachers. They know their child in ways I never will. I reach out early and often and treat what families know as essential rather than supplemental.
I want every child in my classroom to leave more curious, more confident, and more capable of shaping the world around them.