About the Author

I-Ling Hsiung is a fifth and sixth grade general education teacher in Milpitas, California. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to San Jose, CA when she was five years old. She completed her K-12 schooling in San Jose Unified School District. She received her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley in the environmental sciences, along with minors in music and education. She holds a Master's Degree in elementary education from Stanford University. Every year she looks forward to welcoming each individual student into the classroom and building each students’ academic and social-emotional skills. She believes an effective teacher uses a variety of strategies that reflect the students’ backgrounds, abilities, participatory styles and learning experiences. From her students, she has learned to communicate more directly when she wants something done, to embrace vulnerability in the classroom and to be proud of how she is helping her students construct their own understanding of the world in a meaningful educational context.