I have been blessed with the ability to instruct young minds for over 14 years. The majority of my teaching experience has been at an inner-city school, where I was also the lead teacher and a resident educator. I was honored to have been nominated and a finalist for teacher of the year for the district where I worked.

I have witnessed that students learn best in a safe, loving environment. People in interviews would always ask me about my teaching style, and I would always say the same thing: “It always changes.” As a teacher, my students were different from year to year, and I could not approach each class the same way. 

A few examples are that some classes did best in small groups with lots of hands-on activities, some were better with independent work, and some needed to learn through discovery. Most of the classes I taught used a mixture of these methods along with other ways to reach them. 

One of the first things I needed to do was get to know my students and their learning styles. I would then determine what each student might be lacking in knowledge and the skills that were still needed to create a plan to help them become successful. A plan was then created and modified as needed.

Knowing my students would also help me develop an academic plan that would fit their needs. Once I shifted focus to an individualized plan for the year instead of making sure I covered all the curriculum, my student growth soared higher than ever. For many years, I followed this plan, and my class average was two years of growth or more, with some students growing more than the average, including a student growing four years and being able to remove their IEP.