A - About Me
This is my first year teaching fourth grade and my fifth year teaching. Prior to Collins Elementary, I taught sixth grade Humanities, a hybrid course of writing + literature + history, at The Girls' Middle School in Palo Alto. I first started teaching at Montclaire Elementary, where I taught fifth grade for two years. I look forward to teaching fourth grade and getting to know your child this school year.
B - Background
Prior to lesson planning, grading, and supervising recess duties, I studied communications and sociology at UC Davis. My most memorable experience in my college years happened abroad as I studied marketing strategies and learned about higher education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This unmatched cultural immersion experience taught me the value of learning through my travels as well as learning under new cultural lens. From here, I developed a thirst to see the world. When I am away from the classroom, I love to explore my local environment as well as traveling to new places.
My route to become a teacher did not peak until my college years. As I added on a second major, Sociology, I completed three internships working with three different community groups: children, adults, and senior citizens. Of the three groups, I was most drawn to working with children, not by any means to infer that working with adults and senior citizens is less rewarding. There's truly something unique about working with students - their enthusiastic energy, active imagination, and inquisitive mind keep me inspired, challenged, and quite frankly, young.
C - Cool Facts
I proudly take pride in coming from a large family. I am the oldest of four boys. I like to think that I am the smartest, funniest, and most talented of the four - but this is an ongoing debate in my household, often resolved by agreeing to disagree. I was born in Dalat, Vietnam, a city located 1,500 feet above sea level in southern Vietnam. My family immigrated to San Jose in 1993, the same year I started third grade. This is the closest I will come to revealing my age (students: start calculating.) In my spare time, I am out and about hiking, reading at coffee shops, playing chef in the kitchen, and exploring city life.