As a teacher, I am a facilitator of knowledge. It is my duty teach my students, not only to the academics and content standards, but also the social and emotional abilities that they need to learn and to help guide them through the rest of their lives. As an educator, it is my job to help students grow and learn to observe the world through a perspective that is not just their own. I hope to provide my students with the tools and strategies that they need to develop new relationships with people from cultures, to find commonalities between themselves and others and learn to love everyone and recognize that everyone has their own strengths. It is my duty as an educator to help my students learn and grow to see the world in a new and wonderful light.

I believe that children learn and grow best when they have somebody who cares about them. Every child needs at least one adult who believes in them wholeheartedly. There is no way for a child to learn, to grow and to feel accomplished if they don't have an adult who believes in them. Children at their foundation just want to be loved and appreciated and to know that they are doing the right thing, the best thing. We can achieve this if the adults in their lives are encouraging them and helping them. Then they will be satisfied, and they will learn and grow and become the adults that we hope that they will be. They will become the members of society that we hope that they will be.

In short, humanizing the classroom is remembering that your students are human. They are young children who have their own interests, personalities, and trauma. Humanizing the classroom means that. You are building those relationships. You are understanding where your children come from, who they are, how they learn. And you are then adapting your curriculum in your teaching to accommodate them. So often we get lost in the need to meet our standardized expectations. Humanizing the classroom acknowledges that the students that we have in our classroom are humans with. Strengths, weaknesses and feelings. To support this I believe strongly in implementing a classroom community, to help build relations between both myself with the students as well as the students with each other. I also believe in being proactive instead of reactive. I believe in providing the students with proper accommodations for their needs and aim to have a supportive environment for everyone. By doing so I am able to create an environment where students are able to find an outlet for their emotions, both positive and negative.

I want to create an environment where my students come in and know they are welcome. They are greeted at the door by a friendly face and a response that is just for them. I will hope for my students to be able to see themselves throughout the classroom to see the culture that we have created within, as well as their cultures from home represented through art and activities and writings that will be posted on the wall. I hope that my students will feel loved and encouraged and never doubt themselves because of their abilities or perceived inabilities. They will never doubt themselves because of the color of their skin or the language that they speak at home. My hope is that when my students leave my class, they feel confident, empowered and loved. I also want to ensure that they leave with the skills they need both academically and personally.

My Philosophy of Educational Technology is in short, to prepare students for the future. The world we live in makes technological leaps every day—every second—it seems, and because of this we need our students to be prepared. Technology has so many uses, and there are so many ways that because of technology we are able to make our classrooms more inclusive, be it voice to text features that are able to translate languages for our students who are learning English or adaptive technology to help our students with disabilities. Technology is used in the most industrial ways, to build things and to communicate with others, even if they are across the world. However, I think it is also important to teach students that technology is more than STEM, technology is not just used in the sciences or math, technology is also art.

I want my students to know that technology, like so many things in our lives, is not one dimensional. Technology can be used to build, to create, to learn, to speak—with our voices, our writing our art.

The best way for students to learn, however, is for them to have access to technology and to try for themselves. I hope to be a leader in my school, I hope that I am able to give my students access to different types and interpretations of technology so that they can learn on their own how best to apply it to their lives.