Within my work as a teacher, I aim to create spaces that empowers students to work creatively, develop higher order thinking skills, and grow self-confidence in their learning. I believe this is best achieved through dismantling the common power structure we see in most classrooms of teacher over student and instead employing a holistic model of learning that levels this playing field. As bell hooks writes in Teaching to Transgress, “our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students” (1994). As a lifelong learner myself, I acknowledge my connection to the students I teach in our capacity for shared intellectual and spiritual growth especially in connection to the outside world.

To strengthen this connection, I teach with a sense of passion and humility in an effort to create a welcoming and exciting classroom atmosphere for learning. I find it important to acknowledge my own mistakes while teaching as this sets the standard for students to feel comfortable doing the same. As a teacher, I understand that there is a power dynamic at play and, as Learning in Places states in the “Power and Historicity Framework,” “Power is not inherently good or bad, rather it is a question of how it is utilized and why.” In my teaching philosophy, I wish to use the power I am inherently given not to hold it over them but to role model care and wonder for the students and their connection to our local flora and fauna. While in the classroom, I also find it important to acknowledge each students’ individuality in their lived experiences and background. As each student is a person operating with different needs, abilities, and understandings, using inclusive language when addressing the class and their families is a non-negotiable. In my experience working in a bilingual school, I acknowledged this difference in either Spanish or English understanding through the inclusion of both Spanish and English in the curriculum and its materials. This variance of learners and their backgrounds is also why I find opening the floor for questions and comments is important for cultivating students’ relationships with our shared environment.

While teaching, I find the most joy in seeing students draw connections between their lived experiences and the topics we learn in the classroom. One such moment happened recently with a lesson in pollination as a student was struggling to find the connection between how a flower grows a fruit. Thinking of local fruit trees and plants, I mentioned the cherry blossom tree and how, after pollination, they grow cherries. The moment I did so, the entire room lit up and began asking more questions in awe of how a cherry comes from a tree and if other fruit trees would do the same. This gave me the idea for future lessons to link the life cycle of a fruit tree to the life cycle of the bird we were studying, drawing connections between pollinators, pollination, and fruit. A week later, when we taught about habitats, I also made an effort to deepen students understanding of the habitat essential of food by linking it to the previous week’s pollination breakthrough. While mentioning how hummingbirds need many flowers to drink from, I gave examples of what they may look for whether that be a fruit tree, a flowering bush, or a big flower garden. It is with these moments that I am encouraged to keep asking questions and bridge the gaps between topics learned in the classroom and students’ lived experiences.