Let's Innovate Through Education by Glorimar

Let's Innovate Through Education by Glorimar - June 2020 Scholarship Essay

I consider school a sacred place, a place where every child should be able to succeed and achieve their aspirations and hopes. I am a first-generation Puerto Rican and Dominican college student who grew up in the Latinx community of Lawrence, Massachusetts. My parents always ingrained in me the notion that education can lead to freedom and opportunity. For that reason, when I enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I knew I wanted to study something that would empower youth. Almost immediately, I fell in love with my sociology courses because learning about race, gender, feminism, and inequality intrigued me. During my sophomore year, I began taking education courses that taught me about educational inequality, structural and institutional racism, and the importance of multicultural education in response to these overwhelming issues. As an Afro-Latina woman, I have always been interested in learning about other Latinx countries outside of my own. I was also captivated by the Portuguese language and culture. For this reason, I decided to study abroad during my junior year to immerse myself in a new culture and polish my Portuguese linguistic skills.
I took courses that broadened my knowledge and perspective of Brazilian culture. Some of the most impactful courses I completed were Latin American Social Inequalities, Peoples of the Amazon, and Brazilian Culture: Film. Through these classes, I was able to get closer to fulfilling a personal goal of learning about the inequalities that affect the global Latinx community. I acquired language and structural models to better understand how to talk about my community in my academic work.
While abroad, I interned at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil, where I led conversational English classes for college students and locals. I had the opportunity to facilitate my own discussions and lead sessions that were engaging and challenging, as well as addressed contemporary issues, such as poverty and crime. We had discussions comparing different aspects of Brazilian and American culture, such as food, traditions, ethnic relations, gender roles, and social stratification. Students were also responsible for leading presentations and discussions at times. Some of my female pupils led a discussion on what it means to be an indigenous woman in Brazil. Others did a workshop around the issue of domestic violence in Brazil. This experience taught me the importance of creating a classroom where everyone is a learner. I love being in the classroom and teaching students about subjects they are passionate about and creating a curriculum that is culturally relevant.
For the past two summers, I worked with middle school-age students at the Generation Teach STEAM Academy in Holyoke, MA, teaching reading classes as well as Running and Portuguese elective classes. My fluency in Spanish was particularly useful when helping some of my ESL students in the classroom. During both summers, I took the lead on creating the curriculum and lesson plans for my classes. I received daily feedback and guidance from my coach for delivering lessons and managing classroom culture.
I will be starting my Bilingual, ESL, and Multicultural Education Master’s program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst this fall of 2020 because my future goal is to become an ESL educator in a Latinx community. This program is unique because it is centered on using a curriculum that is responsive to racial, cultural, linguistic, and social class differences and facilitates learning. As an Afro-Latina I consider a multicultural education essential to a child’s learning because it is one of the best ways for students to become aware of social issues and learn about their history. I envision myself completing my practicum in Holyoke and Springfield Massachusetts working with ESL students to gain more experience, which are the types of communities I want to work with after graduating from Bilingual, ESL, and Multicultural Education Master’s program. This program would give me the tools I need to help my future ESL students acquire language and literacy skills in English, while also supporting their native language and cultural development.
Throughout this program, I intend to continually learn how to incorporate teaching techniques to create an enriching classroom where students develop confidence in their ability to learn a new language through cultural exchange experiences and crafting interactive activities. I want to inspire my future ESL students to continue to speak their native language, especially at home because I do not want them to feel that in order to learn English they have to stop speaking their native tongue. Being able to speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese will serve as a bridge, through language and culture, where every parent I work with can feel comfortable communicating with me. I can envision myself growing as an individual and implementing the skills gained in this program in my future teaching career. I will bring my linguistic skills in Spanish and Portuguese, and my Latinx cultural awareness to this program. Lastly and most importantly, I am bringing my prior teaching techniques in Brazil and in Massachusetts and share it with my future classmates and professors in the Bilingual, ESL, and Multicultural Education Master’s program to better serve our students in the classroom. For all these reasons, obtaining my Masters in Multicultural education is essential as a future teacher who wants to push students to be critical thinkers, leaders, innovators, and activists of the world.