I am thrilled to introduce myself as an Active Education Teacher here at HTEx. First and foremost, I am a mother to three beautiful children ages 11, 19 and 22. They truly are the joy and passion of my heart and motivate me to continue nurturing young children! In my free time, you can find me paddle boarding with my furry friend, Milo the corgi or walking the dog beaches with my girls and our furry friends. I also enjoy the great outdoors as I feel most alive when I am surrounded by nature. What matters the most in my life are not the accomplishments, status, wealth or position but rather the raising of my children and students to be humble, kind, generous, honest and compassionate individuals. I am reminded about how children thrive and succeed in life. It is because someone simply cared and acknowledged them as a whole being. As a result, they felt valued and belonged. From this emerged a deeper sense of self worth and purpose giving birth to a passion and drive to achieve higher! Once quoted by Theodore Roosevelt: “”People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care””, will always resonate within my mind and heart as the basic need and essence of humankind.

While raising my three children, I was fortunate to continue my studies beyond my Bachelors degree and received my Masters in Special Education while obtaining a Single Subject in Science, Education Specialist mild/mod and a Multiple Subject credential. For the past 16 years, I worked at the San Diego Community College as an instructor of Child Development and Parenting Education programs. In these programs, I found a great purpose and calling in my life to work in collaboration with parents and young children in natural outdoor educational settings similar to Waldorf and Reggio Emilia style pedagogy. In this program, our focus was to utilize all sensory experiences for learning while creating artistic projects at various parks and natural environments. My most recent experience at a local Charter school was creating outdoor educational and cooperative games as a specialty teacher. I worked closely with about 20% of these students who had IEP’s and learned valuable techniques and strategies to maximize their participation and motivation in various outdoor cooperative games. As an Active Education Teacher, I believe that children learn best when they can move their bodies beyond the four walls of a classroom and into the vast outdoor spaces where creativity and imagination is limitless.