Teaching Story

What were the factors that influenced you to become a teacher? Describe what you consider to be your greatest contributions and accomplishments in education. 

My teaching story is not a traditional one. I never meant to be a teacher, and I never meant to live in Oklahoma. After graduating from college in 2020 with a degree in Sustainability, I was unsure of exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted to make a difference in others’ lives. When the opportunity arose to join Teach For America, I thought it was the perfect chance to make positive change while identifying exactly what I wanted to do with my future. Oklahoma was nowhere on my radar until the pandemic affected my initial teaching placement in Washington. Two weeks before the start of the school year, I accepted a position to teach at McLain and spent the next several days driving across the country to make it in time for onboarding. I had no idea that the next two years would turn into the five most impactful years of my life.

Originally, I planned to fulfill my commitment with Teach For America and move on to find the next big thing. What I didn’t account for were the deep relationships that would form over those two years. By the time the Class of 2022 was graduating, I found it impossible to say goodbye to the community that had started to feel like family to me. What held me at McLain were the three other corps members that I started teaching with, who pushed me to show up every day and do the absolute best I could in every aspect of my job. It was the principals and evaluators who saw my strengths and advocated for me. And most of all, it was the students; the ones who inspired me, made me laugh, gave me immense pride, and even the ones who challenged me. I wanted to continue doing what I could to ensure that they received an education that would rival any other school.

During my first two years in the classroom, I taught math. However, I felt a disconnect between what I was teaching and my passion for the environment and sustainability. At the same time, I was finishing up my second year of Teach for America and writing my Theory of Change, which highlights an area of educational inequity. I saw that when compared to other schools (such as Union and Broken Arrow), McLain was greatly lacking in our offerings in environmental education. This reinforces the idea that environmental education is not prioritized in low-income communities. However, it is critical that all students, but especially students in groups that are disproportionately affected by human impacts on the environment, are given equal access to environmental education. I knew that if I stayed at McLain, it meant that I would need to make a change. The following school year, I began teaching Environmental Science (which, at the time, was the only environmental course that we offered). The school year after that, I joined the Career Tech team to advocate for the addition of more environmental education classes to our course of study. In the past two years, I’ve taught PLTW Environmental Sustainability, Renewable Energy, and Hydroponics at McLain.

One of the biggest honors of my teaching career was accepting the 2024 Metropolitan Environmental Trust’s Green School Award for McLain. This was awarded due to our students’ involvement in environmental programming on campus, such as the schoolwide recycling project started through the Interact Club and the campus energy audit that my Renewable Energy class completed. It was also due to my advocacy for increasing environmental course offerings at McLain and teaching students about sustainability and community impact. This award was a huge achievement for our school, as it put McLain on the map as a frontrunner in green education. It also allows us to further build relationships with community stakeholders and show that all students, but especially students in North Tulsa, deserve access to high quality environmental education.

I believe that the most important part of learning science is allowing students to experience it. One of the things that I’m most proud of as an educator is building opportunities for students to interact with the world around them. As a Career Tech teacher, I have a lot of creative license in what and how I teach my classes. The big focus of my STEM program is the Hydroponics course. When I took this class on, everyone had big dreams for what it could be. The challenge was figuring out how to teach an incredibly niche course with very few existing resources. Lots of investigation showed me that programs like what we have at McLain are rare. This meant that all of the curriculum needed to be created by me. With a lot of hard work (and more creativity than I knew I had), I’ve been able to create a Hydroponics course that is rigorous, technical, engaging, and connected to the community.

Over the years, I have worked diligently to ensure that my curriculum supports learners of all levels and backgrounds. I’m always looking for opportunities to improve my teaching practice. In order to give my students a high-quality education, I sign up for any professional development opportunity that I can. Last school year, I completed 80 hours of training to become a certified Project Lead the Way Environmental Sustainability teacher. I am currently in my final semester of the Accelerate Educator Fellowship, a two-year instructional program designed to increase collective teacher efficacy. I was also accepted into the Pilot Light Food Education Fellowship for this school year, which has provided me with training and funding for incorporating food education and advocacy into my curriculum. I’ve partnered closely with evaluators and coaches over the past five years to identify strengths and growth opportunities in my teaching. Thanks to these efforts, I received a “Highly Effective” rating on my evaluation for the 2023-2024 school year. 

Aside from developing a strong environmental program at McLain, I am also passionate about supporting school climate and culture. As only a fifth year educator, I’m already one of the senior teachers at McLain. I feel responsible for helping ensure that our school is “On Time, On Track, On a Mission!”, in accordance with a popular McLain saying. I’ve taken on many additional roles outside of the classroom, including Interact Club sponsor, Technology Student Association sponsor, and former sponsor of the Class of 2023. I regularly teach summer school and often volunteer to pilot new programs or take over existing ones to help improve student outcomes. This year, I took on several sections of Google Tools (in addition to my environmental classes) in an effort to improve student proficiency across the board for our scholars.

I often joke that my entire life revolves around my job. The truth is, I’m not kidding. I moved to a state that I had never been before just to teach at McLain. I arrive early to prepare my classroom for the day’s activities and I stay late to host after school clubs or support students at their games. My best friends work with me, and I get to spend time with students that I love every day. I am working towards impact within my classes and the greater McLain community. I am so proud of the work that I get to do.