I believe that building meaningful relationships with students and respecting their identity and culture is a top priority in creating a healthy classroom environment.
I believe in building an inclusive classroom with the fundamental goals of mutual respect and safety for all students through fostering meaningful relationships and leading by example.
I believe in diversifying instructional methods and assignments to encourage multimodal learning and representing knowledge, with the goals of engaging all learners and collecting accurate and diverse assessments of learning.
I believe in continuing to reflect on my positionality in the classroom and community and recognizing the privilege that I hold, with the goal of increasing my awareness of societal implications present in my classroom space and working towards dismantling these unbalanced dynamics.
I believe in taking actionable steps towards decolonizing the classroom space through flattening the power dynamic, introducing culturally responsive resources, inviting community members into the classroom space, and implementing talking circles into instructional time. I will also continue to learn from indigenous people in my community and how I can continue to work towards decolonizing my teaching practice.
I believe in amplifying the voices of all my students in discussions and actively listening to the stories and knowledge that they bring into the classroom space. Student’s funds of knowledge are a valuable tool in anchoring their understanding of the curriculum and increasing their engagement with the curriculum.
I believe in fostering a shared learning space where I learn from students, students learn from each other, and students learn from me.
I believe in implementing place-based learning to make meaningful connections with the environment and community with the goal of enriching the learning experience for students.