My Big "Why"
As an experienced Social Justice Teacher and community advocate, I have developed a passion and personal commitment to helping my communities and students succeed. I feel that my background as an educator and Founder of a community empowerment program has helped to build my platform as I pursue supporting total youth empowerment through education.
My Work
My teaching style demonstrates dedication to fostering a positive learning environment to all students and maximizing individual student performance. The accomplishment I'm most proud of in my education career is my ability to lead with influence and power which inspires my community to advocate for equity and strive for excellence and opportunity. As I have strived to impact education in San Jose on a broader scale I have collaborated with powerful education networks facilitating professional development around culturally responsive teaching while developing my own social justice and culture curriculum for k-5 education. Along with my career in education, I founded a Non Profit directed toward the empowerment of young girls in our community. Building the program off of History and social justice I saw an increased impact in self confidence and esteem within the participants. The empowerment of our female students of color is essential and crucial especially considering the current state of our nation. In the past four years that I have successfully operated Queenhype, I have operated in direct response to female student academic progress.
My Hunger
Amidst my achievement in education lies my deep hunger to positively impact and build my community. As an African American woman coming from a social economically disadvantaged background; I fully empathize with most of our San Jose residents as well as the larger population of the U.S. I have dedicated my life’s work to closing the opportunity gap in education, social action, gender and race equity and all of the issues in between. My interest lies within supporting students building and recognizing their autonomy to make the change. I firmly believe that empowerment can only be taught through history. History is the fabric of our society and shapes the influence behind movements and revolutions. I personally have witnessed and believe that students that are history literate have a deeper connection to their learning and an enhanced passion for social change. History must be taught holistically and without bias, providing students with all of the facts and information will allow them to make build their own perspectives about how to shape and re imagine societies. Students deserve the right to discover their power and determine how best to use it. Giving them a platform is the most compassionate thing an educator can do for a child.