Personal Statement regarding my calling as an Educator
I am a Educator at heart. I always have been.
As the oldest of my siblings and cousins, I always helped with homework during the school year and tutoring during summer.
As a fifth grader, I visited 2nd grade classrooms and read to students.
As a high school student, I worked my church's After School Program and Summer Day Camp. I also privately tutored after school once a week.
In college, I tutored Chinese and Japanese language to adults and students on weekends and early mornings.
During my study abroad in Taiwan, I also tutored children and adults in English.
Eventually, I worked in China for one year as an English language instructor at a university.
And finally, upon returning to the U.S., I returned to my alma mater, I.S. 318, to teach alongside my former teachers.
During the 2001-2003 school years, I taught 6th grade, held early morning programs with Chinese ELL students, and worked in two After School Bilingual Programs - one in Spanish and one in Chinese.
When I was excessed in 2003 due to the NYC Board of Education dismantling under the new Bloomberg administration, I worked for three years as an Education Coordinator and project manager at a Chinatown non-profit Youth Center. I directed After School, ESL, Homework Tutoring and Summer Day Camp. I was also a staff worker at our sleep-away camp in charge of worship and pastoral counseling.
In 2006, I was able to return to my school, but instead of teaching 6th grade, I began a new career path as the first and only Chinese teacher to ever be hired at my alma mater. I pioneered and created the Chinese Language Curriculum at a time when Chinese language resources were scarce in the middle school sector. I also taught 7th grade Life Science to fill a vacancy. In my last few months before going on Maternity Leave in the Fall of 2011, I taught 8th grade ELA as a substitute for another teacher who was on her maternity leave.
Once on Maternity and Childcare Leave, I naturally slipped into my role as "Teacher-Mommy." I will always be my children's first and primary teacher. As a homeschooling parent, I read to my children from birth, expose them to rich literature and vocabulary to meticulously ensure that they woul become fluent in the languages of their heritages - English, Spanish and Chinese.
For three years, I worked at a Chinese Dual-Language PreK-8 school on the edge of Chinatown in the Lower East Side in Manhattan. I taught third grade, which has become one of my favorite grades to teach. I taught all core subjects as well as SEL in both English and Chinese. I was able to implement an entirely different teaching style, one that harnassed audio, visual and kinestetic tactics to appeal to the whole student.
The methods I used were so successful in helping my students learn that it gained the attention of my principal, who once called me her "Star Teacher" in front of Dr. Leon of The Division of English Language Learners and Students Support (DELLSS). Dr. Leon was so impressed by the rigor demonstrated in my classroom and the engagement of my students, that she observed me teach for half of a day!
For the last three years, I served as a middle school Chinese teacher closer to home in Brooklyn, NY. Once again, I am the first Chinese teacher to ever be hired and am currently still the only Chinese teacher in the school. I teach about 300 students each year in all three grades the basics of Chinese language and culture. I also have led professional learning/development workshops on an adhoc basis, and support the other foreign language teacher in the usage of educational technologies necessitated by the pandemic.
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Over the course of the past two decades of teaching experience and the many preparation years that came before, I have come to fully appreciate the fact that a teacher is a life-long learner.
My goal in every class is to inspire a love of learning. I love school, I love teaching, I love reading, I love learning. My students see this, imitate this and become this. That is my greatest joy.
