A Childhood at the Crossroads of Culture

Growing up in the United States with Caribbean parents placed me at a beautiful crossroads of cultures. My childhood neighborhood was a mosaic of identities—Jehovah’s Witnesses on one side of our home, a White atheist family on the other, African-American Baptists across the street, and Muslim, Catholic, and Presbyterian families woven throughout my school community. That diversity wasn’t just something I noticed; it shaped the way I saw the world. Even as a child, I was full of inquiry. I spent hours reading encyclopedias, trying to understand religions, histories, and cultural stories far beyond my own.

The Teacher Who Changed Everything

When my curiosity outgrew what I could find at home, I turned to my teachers. Most offered polite, short answers, except one. After I wrote an assignment about wanting to study theology when I grew up, one of my teachers invited me to have lunch in her classroom. That day, she shared about her own Buddhist faith with me—why she chose it, how she learned about it, and what it meant to her as the only Buddhist in her family. She didn’t talk to me like a child; she talked to me like someone whose curiosity mattered. She encouraged me, showed me where to find books, and opened a door I didn’t know existed.

That was the moment I realized I wanted to be a teacher.

Learning What Teaching Really Means

My elementary teacher’s attentiveness, her humanity, and the way she honored every student equally set the standard for the teacher I later hoped to become. Her classroom embodied everything I now understand through theory—humanism, socio-cultural learning, cognitivism, transformative practice. But at eight years old, what I saw was someone who treated every student with genuine care, and who took my questions seriously. I wanted to do for others what she did for me.

As I continued through school, I found myself observing my teachers with intention—how their classrooms felt, how they spoke to us, how they made learning come alive. I imagined what my own classroom would look like one day and which subjects I’d teach. The same passions that carried me through childhood and undergrad—English, History, Geography, Physical Education—are still the spaces where my curiosity and joy thrive.

A Book That Shifted My Purpose

Several years later, a book profoundly shifted my thinking: 10 Types of Human by Dexter Dias. His stories—particularly the account of a former child slave in Ghana—showed me the power of giving people a voice. The story was extremely sad and eye-opening. Children were sold to this Ghanaian lake town under false pretenses. Families in the lake town would promise mothers from his village that they would buy the children and give them an education and a better life. Instead, they took the children and used them as slaves, forcing them to be on small fishing boats all day every day, fishing with their hands. It was common for children to fall out the boat in the middle of the lake and drown. Dias shared this story and analyzed the systems and human behaviors around it.

That combination of storytelling and deep inquiry resonated with me. I realized that in my classroom, I want students to feel seen, heard, and free to bring their truths—no sugarcoating, no shrinking. I want to guide them in using writing, art, and creativity to express their lived experiences with clarity and courage.

The Teacher I Am Today

As a teacher today, and as a graduate student working toward my M.Ed., that mission drives everything I do. I encourage my students to be authentic to themselves, to use their voices boldly, and to build community through genuine dialogue. Frameworks like Plain Vanilla and tools like the community ball have reshaped the way I facilitate discussions, making space for every voice—no matter a student’s background, confidence level, or identity. To me, that’s what immediate social justice looks like in the classroom: everyone gets the chance to speak, to be listened to, and to matter.

How My Students See Me

My students often call me the “cool teacher.” Not because I’m the loudest or the most energetic, but because I respect them, I listen, and I challenge them to think deeply. Some of my former students have even shared publicly how much my class impacted them—affirmations that remind me why I do this work. I’m not the teacher with endless games or constant noise; I’m the teacher who creates space for belonging, creativity, and critical thought. And now, blending my natural compassion, my multicultural upbringing, my academic interests, my teaching experience, and my evolving knowledge of pedagogy, I intentionally design classrooms where curiosity and community thrive.

Love as Educational Practice

Yos writes, “Our schools ought to purposefully cultivate loving human relationships.”
I believe this wholeheartedly.

In my classroom, I strive to cultivate exactly that—spaces where students feel loved, respected, challenged, and inspired to use their voices in meaningful ways. My purpose as an educator is simple: ask, listen, research, and respond with care. To me, that is the foundation of transformative teaching, and the kind of classroom I hope to create every single day.

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References

Dias, D. (2017). The Ten Types of Human: Who We Are and Who We Can Be. Alfred A. Knopf.

Yos, T. B. (Year). Raising the Bar: Love, the Community of Inquiry, and the Flourishing Life. Educational Perspectives, 44(1–2), 52–57.

Miller, C. (2015). The Plain Vanilla Philosophical Inquiry Process. The Teacher Philosopher.