education: personal statement
Education bursts doors wide open for life-changing experiences and creates endless opportunities. I’ve devoted my life to designing, working, and living to create experiences that foster individual empowerment. I’m excited about facilitating accessible education and inspiring people, creating a nurturing learning environment, and reaching individuals at different developmental stages from all walks of life. I want to affect the way that people approach the world, and I want to find new ways to channel their curiosity and confidence into a continuous exchange of knowledge.
Experiential learning is how I’ve interacted with the world for as long as I can remember...and it hasn’t stopped. I vividly remember learning about shapes and materials by holding and building with blocks at my Montessori preschool. From learning not to stick keys in electrical outlets to navigating the social constructs of being an adolescent girl in a new town to welding together pieces of metal and seeing how much force will break them apart, it’s always been that hands-on approach that has led me to the knowledge I use every day.
As an undergraduate Industrial Design student at Rochester Institute of Technology, every project that I tackled provided opportunities to learn interactively. When I wanted to get my hands even dirtier, I took classes in the Mechanical Engineering Technology department. I was challenged not to design a solution based on a set of rules, but to instead create a set of rules in which to examine problems and test solutions from many different angles. For an Exhibit Design class I took in my senior year, I researched different learning styles and teaching methods, and I read and observed people interacting with educational tools in museums...and that’s when I fell in love with learning about how people learn. My final project was designing a science exhibit to engage children with an interactive performance focus in order to create an accessible tool for continuous learning.
My decision to modify my design career path and pursue teacher education feels like a natural progression. While I was in college, I interned as a graphic designer at YAI National Institute for People with Disabilities. The books that I worked on were curricula for teaching disabled children and adults how to be self-sufficient. I was surrounded by passionate educators who were looking at how people with various mental disabilities learn, and who were finding ways to teach things that we take for granted. That experience planted a seed for wanting to design learning tools for all different kinds of learners.
Museum exhibit design allowed me to combine design and education. I found a place where I could be involved in the way people learn and what they learn about through the interactions I designed for them. As a professional Exhibit Designer at West Office Exhibition Design in Oakland, I learned a lot about the design process, model making and team work. I became absolutely fascinated by the content development and education aspects of our projects, and wanted to explore that path further.
In 2008, I embarked upon a solo journey overseas, to work on horse farms and learn as much as possible about new environments and cultures. While I was traveling through New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and India, I learned much more than just how to work with animals and navigate train schedules: I learned to rely on myself and to ask for what I want; I learned how to create realistic expectations for myself while honoring local values; I learned that I needed to take responsibility for the longevity of the planet. Exploring the South Pacific rejuvenated my childhood love of the ocean and engendered a sense of marine stewardship.
In order to more fully integrate myself into Indian culture, I studied spoken Hindi and helped Tibetan refugee friends learn English. In addition to embarking upon wild and amazing treks in the Himalayas, I created programs for themed treks aimed at travelers interested in self-work and connection. The exercises that I put together for each trek centered around a theme—”Mother Nature” and “Exploring Consciousness”—woven throughout the foundation of hiking and yoga. Creating these programs was challenging and thrilling, and fed my desire to write curriculum.
When I returned to the states, I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and at the very top of my list were education and the ocean. It seemed a natural next step to look for a way to be involved with the local aquarium. I volunteered as a SCUBA diver and soon after also started working as an Interpretive Naturalist at the Aquarium of the Bay. The “ah-ha!” moments that crossed guests’ faces during interactions and presentations inspired me to focus on teaching. I started teaching classroom programs for kindergarten through 5th grade as soon as the next school year began.
My favorite class to teach at the aquarium was “Life on the Rocks,” in which I focused on adaptation and basic tide pool ecology. Having the aquarium as a resource during classes was a unique advantage to this topic, so I was able to utilize our indoor living tide pool to demonstrate what the animals look and feel like. I developed lesson plans based on state science standards, what the particular class was learning in their regular curriculum, and background information from the Education department. In order to connect the students to the idea of why animals need to adapt, one of the activities I created, “Tide Pool Road Trip,” simulates environmental stressors in the harsh tide pool environment. As a class, we playact being in a car on a long road trip, becoming increasingly less comfortable [getting parched, hungry, and needing to pee!] as the trip wears on. Students pantomime their physiological reactions to my dramatized description of this dire situation, ending with a discussion of how they felt at each turn and how that relates to the animals in a tide pool. By understanding why an animal wants or needs to adapt, the students create connections between their own lives and the animals that we’re studying.
The year when I was teaching classroom programs at the aquarium brought me some of my happiest memories. Unfortunately, these classroom opportunities were limited so I sought out other ways to continue pursuing my passions at the aquarium. I advocated for the creation of an Exhibit Designer position to continue pursuing education through design, and to connect the Exhibits and Education departments. When the school year ended in 2011, I moved into the exhibits position full-time. As time progressed, I missed working with children more and more. I then decided to step out from behind the veil of exhibit design and go straight to interacting with the learners face-to-face.
Every step of the way in this journey, I am learning how to connect with people who have a variety of needs. I enjoy finding ways to support and embrace their energy and creativity, and to reach and inspire their hunger for knowledge. Through a combination of Nonviolent Communication and mindfulness coaching, I am mentoring students through conflict resolution and facilitating their journey in self-regulation. I see a lot of value in the curiosity and confidence of young minds, and I want to keep finding new ways to harness that and channel it into a continuous exchange of knowledge. I am exploring the field of education from the inside, on my way to being an inspiring, life-changing teacher.
