As a teacher of the humanities and arts it is pivotal to the success and growth of our students that we foster an inclusive environment where they can feel that they have a voice and that their opinions are valued especially given the cultural enrichment a diverse classroom can bring. I worked as a member of the Summers at Mizzou program in 2019, which sponsored a group of teens from throughout Missouri from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds so they could come to the college and see opportunities in multiple career fields and have a chance to speak to some of the educators in those fields. The students were guided through first hand experiments in the robotics and engineering labs, had tours of the veterinary school, and were allowed to test drive some of the University of Missouri's virtual reality equipment as part of the computer sciences portion of the trip. Summers at Mizzou provided rooms and meal plans so that the students did not feel as though their trip was being undermined by financial stressors. I had the good fortune to be chosen as one of the writers for the Starting Gate New Play Festival hosted by the semi-professional Talking Horse Theatre in Columbia, MO. I wrote two ten-minute plays in response to a dialectic with a view toward normally marginalized or underrepresented groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community. During my time teaching as a substitute instructor while in my master's program for two years (2015-2018) in largely Latinx communities of Southern California as part of both the Val Verde Unified School District and the Jurupa Valley School District, I had the chance to work with students with a wealth of life experience to share with me. I made it a part of my adaptive curriculum to alter my teaching style to best suit the students' needs. Shootings had shaken the areas in which my students lived (with one of the victims being a young man from a nearby school who several of my students knew personally) and I made sure that my classroom was a safe environment in case my students felt the need to share or any unease they wanted to get off their chest. Several of my students have kept in contact with me from these long term assignments and shared their college acceptance letters with me. Looking forward to my role as an educator/tutor, I intend to serve as a mentor and advisor inspiring students from underrepresented groups to pursue English and writing programs, and to increase their confidence that they can reach whatever goals they aspire to.

My interest are primarily reading, writing, and deep research into obscure elements of history that might be overlooked in conventional education. I like to take a sociological viewpoint on history. I also engage in tabletop roleplaying games with a close circle of friends that allows me to stay close to them in a world ever more quickly being consumed by technology and fast paced social media apps. I also enjoy swimming and rock climbing for recreation and walking my dog along the beach.