My Personal Statement 

     Coming from a long line of educators, I grew up in an environment that immersed me in a holistic view of formal education. I fondly remember my mother picking me up from school and immediately taking me to Dallas Independent School District meetings, helping my aunts cut out materials for their own classrooms over summer breaks, and seeing student artwork on my grandmother’s refrigerator on Thanksgiving. I was raised with an appreciation for the endurance, patience, and empathy of great educators; when I recognized those same qualities within myself, I knew I, too, was called to be a great cultivator of young minds. 

     Early Childhood Education is special in that it is a series of “firsts” for students. Preschool teachers welcome students into their first experiences with formal educational settings, laying the foundational associations of learning in students as they enter primary school and beyond. I aim to instill a love for learning in my students by maximizing learning opportunities in the curiosities, likes, and loves of my students. Individualizing instruction based on the hundred languages of children gets students affectively invested in their school experience as they construct knowledge from everyday experiences. Children are wonderfully inquisitive, intellectually competent, and in my opinion -- absolute joy magnets.  As a teacher, I believe it is my duty to protect the joy-seeking hearts of children and to maintain that same jubilance in their scholastic minds. By supporting the whole child as an integral individual in my classroom, I aim to cultivate kind, confident, and enthusiastic problem solvers. 

     Furthermore, I believe that one of the best resources for early childhood educators is a collaborative relationship with students’ families. A loving guardian is a student’s first teacher, and establishing a partnership between the home and the school allows students to feel a sense of safety and comfort in the classroom. A student’s grown-up not only intimately knows the child’s needs, culture, and abilities, but also needs to know that their child’s preschool teacher is providing love and care to their child while at school. Capitalizing off of the social interactions during drop off and pick up, regular correspondence with guardians, and documenting student growth and work are all vital to building an environment that supports both the student’s and their family's best interests. 

     All in all, as an early childhood educator my paramount goal is to protect the rights of the child. Children are not humans-in-the-making, they are individuals who need respect, guidance, and protection in order to thrive. As a teacher, I will uphold my student’s rights to safety and development, having their views heard, and non-discrimination. Children deserve to be treated with the kindness, warmth, and open-mindedness with which they approach the world around them. Protecting the innocence and joy of children, to me, looks like scaffolding learning through play, integrating quality time with students into the daily schedule, and meeting children where they are to help them grow.