Teaching has long been a part of my life. Since 2012, I have been a private tutor, working with grades K-8, high school, college level and adults returning to education. I was then hired to teach at a charter high school. For two years, I experienced practical training and learned how to create syllabi for English, History and Performing Arts classes under the direction of faculty. For the past two years, I have been a teaching assistant at the California Institute of the Arts as a part of my MFA in Creative Writing. I have been lucky to work with generous professors who trained me to be an adaptive, creative and thorough teacher.
At this charter school, I was trained by AVID, a program that works with schools to close the achievement gap by serving students who are overlooked due to socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and gender. AVID's training focused on methods of teaching that required students to engage more: consistent note taking in class, at home text notation, and student-led discussions to empower the class to interact with the material and each other. I have taken this training, the tutelage and the time spent working with young people and continued to develop my pedagogy as a teaching assistant at CalArts.
I still believe in the core tenants of my training and encourage students to lead class when they can, stepping in when needed to provide focus, clarification and direction. A goal of mine is to encourage students to develop critical thinking by peer discussion and debate. I find when students are made to articulate critical ideas themselves and not just repeat back to the teacher or answer a teacher led question, they are more likely to actively engage in the material and create their own relationship with the topic.
California Institute of the Arts
Masters
Creative Writing
2018
Sarah Lawrence College
Bachelors
Liberal Arts
2009
Emi Kuriyama Thesis Award
2018
Test Preparation
ACT
SAT
English
Science
Social Studies
Other
Art