Posts

My education philosophy statement

  “The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.” (James Baldwin- A talk to Teachers,) I remember when I started mentoring Migrant Students back in 2011, I kept hearing over and over, my teachers don’t understand us, they don’t get our culture. I resonated with these comments because I shared a similar experience growing up in Mount Vernon. School was never a welcoming environment for me, so through my mentoring work, I was inspired to become a teacher. The journey was not easy and took a lot of emotional work to get th...

Tezcatlipoca - self reflection, Xipe Totec: transformation.

TW: mention of suicide, depression and trauma.    I want to talk about my first two years of teaching and how those were the most difficult years of my career. When I graduated from college I didn't necessarily go into teaching right away. I graduated in 2016, right after I got a job through AmeriCorps as the Migrant Youth Leadership Coordinator at WWU. I was so excited because this conference was something I was part of when I was in college but it was also a conference I co-founded when I was 17 as my senior project in high school.  It meant a lot to me to be able to run it for 2 years, working with my community and especially working with migrant youth in Skagit and Whatcom counties. Through that process, I was able to be part of so many great things that our youth was doing. It was inspiring, life changing, and most of all it was raw and honest. That's when I knew I needed to go back to school, to get my teaching credentials. I wanted to do more, at that time I though...