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Newly credentialed educator, excited to learn and grow and passionate about helping children!
Hello! Nice to e-meet you! I am a North Carolinian who moved to LA in 2021. I just got my credential this summer 2025 through the CalStateTEACH program, which gave me a year and a half’s worth of student teaching experience! For the three terms of the program, I learned to teach through the eyes of three different classroom teachers (Kindergarten twice, 4th grade once)! I learned so much during this time and left feeling very inspired and eager to continue learning to be a great educator! My hope for myself is to be a warm and nurturing teacher for the kids from all backgrounds. My background is originally in Media and Communications. After 3 years of working in an audio company, I changed my trajectory due to a longing in my heart for something more; I found deep meaning and joy in early childhood education. I felt called to work with high school students in the youth ministry, which I found also to be deeply rewarding. Coincidentally, my mother is an elementary art teacher in North Carolina going on for 23 years and my grandmother was also an elementary teacher for 35 years! The teaching profession runs deep in our family! Through those works and experiences, I learned to be highly organized and creative in a high-pressure environment. In the fast-paced entertainment industry, I learned to develop my professional skills communicating with directors, producers, actors, coordinators, and agents. I am always deeply devoted to the work I am assigned and have a sense of high responsibility. Additionally, I am a team player. I love to work in a team, and I strive to always collaborate when possible to achieve best results!
I’d like to become a teacher who understands the importance of the whole child. I especially learned a lot about social-emotional learning from my current mentor teacher for Kindergarten, Ms. Christina Torres.
One of the most powerful tools I’ve seen in action is the Thinking Mat. I think it’s so awesome how we can encourage kids to solve their own problems through the problem-solving mat (Thinking Mat). I saw firsthand how it allows students to be heard, independent, thinkers, collaborators, listeners and solvers.
A student-led creation of the Classroom Metro in my last assignment! This taught me the importance of helping children have ownership with their learning through their own creativity and choice!
My goal is to support a child in finding true confidence, joy, and resilience in their unique strengths. I want to make sure the children find their motivation to excel intrinsically for themselves to strive and grow for themselves, and not just for praise or grades for outside validation (research shows that this can later equate to things such as a “Facebook like”). I see so much correlation between kids’ feelings and their “performance” in academics. I believe that we should make sure the child feels loved first and foremost in the classroom. From that point forward can we then focus on academics. I think that this intrinsic motivation goes the longest way in life, is most authentic, and is most joyful. Building self-esteem is at the heart of this process. I believe that students improve their conflict resolution skills by having consistent, supported opportunities to take ownership of their challenges and work through them. I also believe in teaching kids to be kind to themselves first, so they can be kind to others. Teaching communication skills, creativity, and gentleness is also becoming one of my passions as a teacher. This philosophy I think can be something they take even into adulthood. I am SO excited to start this journey of teaching kids with this renewed mindset.
Favorite Strategies I’ve found:
I believe that focusing on the Whole Child is so important in true and authentic learning. I think that encapsulates everything I’ve been wanting to do as a teacher, including how we should strive to provide a classroom environment where kids are intrinsically motivated, building self-esteem, learning problem solving skills and resilience, and exercising creativity and choice, and being kind to themselves and others.
These various experiences in student teaching helped me connect everything I’ve been learning into one central belief: when we teach the whole child, we help them carry their learning beyond the classroom… and into life.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope to connect and collaborate to help children’s lives as an educational team soon!
kimberlysiboura242@calstateteach.net