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Miss Gabi 

Miss Gabi's Teaching Philosophy:

As someone who was in public school up until ninth grade when I was dragged by my parents to a weird little school called High Tech High, I frequently had panic attacks, felt like just a number, and had no experience with deeper learning. I distrusted my teachers and would dread waking up and going to school. This changed when I first stepped foot into High Tech High and was seeing students sprawled all over the hallways, laughing, listening to music and building things. Surely enough, my panic attacks subsided and I was excited to go to school, I befriended my teachers, and I felt safe. It is my duty to facilitate a community that is safe for all students regardless of race, socio-economic status, or learning needs. 

 

My teaching philosophy is a reflection of myself as an educator and a human. Intersectionality is a root of myself as a human and of my philosophy. I believe that education should never be binary and it should feel fluid, open, and free. It should not  lean  toward one side of a spectrum, nor the other.  I believe that classroom management should be structured AND fluid. Pedagogy should be culturally responsive AND science based. Students’ culture should be celebrated AND they should be prepared to enter the dominant culture. Students should learn from teachers AND teachers should learn from students. In a primary level education classroom, it is more critical than ever to provide agency, independence, and an equitable power dynamic. 

 

This community must be structured to allow for roots in safety, however, the community should reflect those that reside in it. To achieve this, my classroom community is co-created by students, just as it was my entire high school career at High Tech High. The community agreements created by students bring structure and allow for fluidity as the agreements will eb and flow as we grow together. For example, students will create a set of norms as a class and discuss how we can be sure to hold ourselves accountable to these norms throughout the year. The norms will live physically in the classroom so that we can revisit them as we need to reset, remind, or revise. Students will feel power and ownership over their community rather than feel powerless to their teacher. As High Tech High proved to me that education can feel safe and validating, I will use my classroom and teaching practices to build mutual trust with all students, creating a safe space for students to call home. 

 

While attending public school up until high school, I struggled to accept my own racial identity. I felt that my school wanted me to be white and not brown. Although I feel I was prepared for the dominant culture of America, I lost my sense of culture as a Chicanx person. For this reason, I will aim to provide both aspects in the classroom. Culturally responsive pedagogy is more than having BIPOC books in the classroom library. It is getting to know my students authentically and recognizing their wealth of social and cultural capital. For example, morning meetings are a perfect time to get to know students through sharing questions that are rooted in anti-oppression and social justice. In my classroom, I might ask something like, “Some people fight to gain people more rights. Such as the right to housing and the right to free healthcare. What rights do you think we should all have?” Students respond with their own ideas providing me with knowledge regarding their cultural and social uniqueness. They feel seen and heard, and I can design a curriculum that is responsive to their specific needs and inquiries. After an education experience where my brown father seldom felt comfortable attending SLC’s or POL’s, I aim to make family inclusivity a priority as it takes a village to raise a child and all members of a family deserve to feel welcome in a classroom space.

 

Within the classroom environment rooted in equity, student autonomy is vital to create independent learners. I believe that whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning. I aim to dismantle the power of the traditional teacher and create a space where students and teachers are seen as equal. I know that I have a lot to learn from students just as students have a lot to learn from me. I use this value to further build upon the community mindset and enforce the idea that we are learning together. I believe in full transparency between teacher and student and am not afraid to admit that I do not know everything and am simply there to provide support in students’ journey in education. This practice looks like student-led discussions in the classroom where students are building upon each other's ideas rather than a lecture from a teacher. For example, my role will be to set up routines and procedures early on in the year for student discussion and discourse. This will allow students to lead their own discussions, call on each other’s hands, and agree and disagree respectfully with little interference from myself as a teacher. Collaboration between students provides an environment that fosters autonomy and student agency.

 

Generative conflict in my classroom looks like finding the root cause of behaviours and challenges rather than attempting to fix merely the symptoms. I believe that children express their need for support in different ways and as an educator, I will seek to understand rather than seek to punish. In order to create critical thinkers who can survive in the white man’s world, we must focus on giving students the foundations. In the classroom, this looks like teaching explicit literacy instruction to prepare students for the world they will enter in the future while still holding space for their unique culture.

 

In sum, students spend about half of their waking hours at school. They spend 13 years preparing for a successful lifetime. As an educator, this is a privilege and a monumental responsibility. I understand the weight that this opportunity carries and constantly reflect back on my own education experience in hopes of creating a critical perspective on our country’s current education system whilst providing a safe and dynamic environment for my current students. I will continue to challenge myself and my students to create a community of learners who feel safe, trusted, and valued such as I did the first time I walked through the doors of High Tech High and saw students sprawled on the floor, laughing, listening to music, and building things.

Miss Gabi's Core Teaching Beliefs:

1. All students have the right to feel safe

2. All students have the right to representation in the classroom

3. All students have the right to think and speak critically 
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