As a teacher, I am responsible for cultivating an equitable classroom community that allows my students to grow and learn comfortably, freely, and safely. In my classroom students will not just learn about science and the world around us but they will also learn to collaborate and participate in a community. Having this equitable classroom community is essential to growing and learning science, especially when teaching minorities in a Title 1 school. Building rapport with students is the key to creating this type of classroom community. That is why it is my job to try and make sure that my students are provided with a teacher who is willing to provide them with a community and a space where they feel safe, accepted, respected, included, and supported.  

In my classroom, I will encourage students to build an agency with their education and use me as a resource to further their education. I will help them by providing my students with probing questions and experiences that will allow them to explore, investigate, hypothesize, and create connections. I will encourage them to have a growth mindset. Both my students and I will work to unlearn fixed mindsets together and start to learn and promote growth mindsets. I want to be able to nurture my students' development over time with the proper commitment, support, and effort both on the instructors' and students’ part. I believe that these are the key qualities necessary to promote growth and learning both inside and outside of the classroom. 

I also believe that I, as an educator, can impact the lives of many students by developing and providing a strong stand by contributing to the awareness of social issues, stereotypes, and biases in the classroom. I believe that this is one of the most important, if not the most important, standards to have in classrooms today. Educators have a responsibility to recognize that they will have students from a plethora of backgrounds i.e. ethnicities, races, disabilities, and experiences.

In my classroom, it is my job to help dismantle and bring awareness to the agendas that are posed against minorities that can play a strong role in our students' learning. I will do this by creating lesson plans that address issues in our society today such as misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and colorism but are still able to have engaging conversations and activities rooted in science. This can also be accomplished with the teaching philosophy of the constructivist approach. I believe that students should have the ability to grow their knowledge by making connections to their everyday lives and their past experiences.