Tell us about yourself.  

I like to reflect throughout the day on my teaching and how I am in my personal and work relationships. I’m also kind to myself by having hobbies, such as coloring. I use liquid chalk markers and colored pencils. I have recently started drawing the faces of characters I love. When I draw, I also take the time to reflect on the challenges I’ve had and how to solve those challenges. Additionally, I take time to review victories I’ve had throughout the day. I like cooking as well. I like to try new recipes, and I enjoy baking bread. Cooking is also a good time for me to decompress.   

Tell us about the setting where you teach.  

I work at Family and Child Empowerment Services (FACESSF), a nonprofit organization that serves families with low incomes who live and work in San Francisco, California. At FACESSF, we work to provide high-quality early childhood education as a part of our mission to “empower families [. . . ] to transform their future through evidence-based education and economic opportunities.”  

Our enriching early childhood program is play-based and focused on children’s interests. In our classroom, we focus on social and emotional development and teach children how to be friendly, respectful, safe, and healthy. A key aspect of our approach is helping children as they learn to regulate their emotions and gain awareness of how they and others feel. We also scaffold navigating the learning environment independently. 

My teaching approach is . . . 

I focus on teaching children about expectations, which include being friendly, safe, respectful, and healthy. I use the pyramid model, created by the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL), as a guide for evidence-based practices. Some helpful strategies I use include visual schedules, social stories, a calm-down area, steps for conflict resolution, and visual aid cards that offer solutions for different situations. My goal is to help children learn healthy ways to express emotions.  

I express my own emotions in the classroom and model emotional regulation. I’ve also found it beneficial to ask children open-ended questions, which promotes deeper thinking and connection with their feelings as they make decisions. I’ve seen that children share their emotions and develop their communication skills. 

I knew I had to teach when . . .  

I’ve always been aware of how young children feel. The earliest example I can remember is hearing a baby cry in a restaurant and asking my mom, “What’s wrong with the baby?” She said that she didn’t know, but she took me by the baby so that we could make sure that they were doing okay.  

Another experience occurred during my junior year of high school when my algebra teacher, Mr. Compton, identified me as a teacher. One morning, I asked him for help solving a problem he hadn’t taught our class yet. Later that day, my classmates and I paired up at the whiteboard, and he gave me that same problem. No one else knew how to solve it. I explained the solution to the other students and heard them say, “Oh, that’s how you answer it.” Mr. Compton said, “That’s a future teacher there.”  

What led me to early childhood education was an experience I had in college. I happened to find the last open seat in a child development course. My mom encouraged me to take it. Every day, I came home with a lot to say about what I was learning. For example, I remember telling my mom about a very young child who was smiling at her reflection. She giggled every time she moved her body. When I saw the child smiling, I smiled as well, and two questions came into my head “Does she know that is her?” and “What is she learning?” Those questions inspired me to learn about the process by which children develop at each stage.  

What has kept you in the field as an early childhood educator?  

I teach younger children, ages 3 to 5, and I enjoy supporting them. They have a drive to learn and are curious—they’ll ask about themes, materials, and even why I’m setting up a table for an activity. I also want to be a role model. I’m a 32-year-old African American man. There are negative portrayals of Black men in society and the media. I want to provide children with a different narrative. I want them to see that there are Black men who are loving, caring, successful, and want the best for them. 

What is something important a child has taught you?  

Emotional awareness and empathy are great skills to learn throughout one’s life. I found, through my interactions with young children, that they teach me as much as I teach them. For example, there was a situation in which a child showed me empathy when I was having an emotional moment, tearing up, while reading a book aloud. The child felt comfortable enough to share a challenging moment in her own life, which helped me better understand her and her family. Reflecting back, I see how important it is that we support children in this area and that we’re open to what children can teach us (adults) too.   

What strategies or approaches do you use to build upon children’s individual and family strengths, cultural backgrounds, and experiences?  

We invite families to share their knowledge and experiences in different ways and throughout the year. We welcome them as participants in learning experiences, like cooking and creating recipes together, and we make sure there’s dedicated time for children to talk about items and experiences that are important to them. We have potlucks where families can bring food and clothing from their culture and incorporate their funds of knowledge into our curriculum.  

One example that comes to mind involves a child whose family was from Tibet. The child brought in a well-worn glove that his great-grandfather had used to take care of and train golden eagles. The children and I were curious about it, so to extend the learning, we watched a video about training birds of prey in Tibet. We talked about what training was and watched as the eagle flew off and came back. We also talked about the trainer’s responsibilities to the bird and the eagle’s purpose, which was to hunt for the trainer. I made a link to some of the purposes the children have in our classroom community, which is to learn, make art, and be kind to each other.  

Describe some ways in which you communicate with families to build and maintain positive and reciprocal relationships.  

We use a family messaging app (Learning Genie) to communicate with families and to show them pictures of their children in the classroom. I like to take pictures of in-the-moment learning and play. For example, our school got a new internet router that came in a giant box. It was spacious—the size of a Great Dane. I set the box in the middle of the carpet. Within an hour, a group of children had filled the box with materials from the block area as well as trains, LEGO pieces, and animals. Others sat in the box to relax. One child, Lucian, even brought a book to read in the box.  

When sharing with families, I include captions, using a free graphic design program (Canva), to describe what an individual child did and to explain activities and processes. For group activities—like making cookies, which we did recently, I post to all the families; otherwise, I share with individual families. I also post this kind of documentation outside the classroom door for other families in the program to see.  

What is your proudest accomplishment as an educator?  

Teaching and supporting social and emotional development are what I feel most proud of. Teachers need to have many tools at any given moment. I’ve learned that children can experience similar situations and challenges, so when something happens that I’ve seen before, it’s helpful to have tools to apply. It’s taken me about seven years to refine how I individualize my practices—which strategies to use for individual children and specific situations. For example, the language I use is something that I’ve learned by growing into my role as a teacher and continuing to learn from research-informed resources.  

During my first year of teaching, I had a student named Senna, who was inquisitive, but I didn’t yet have the strategies to work with her. When I saw her mom a few months ago, I told her that I wish I could have worked with Senna using the strategies I have now. Recently, there was a similar child in my class, Diova. She was also an inquisitive and logical thinker. She challenged me because she asked me a lot of open-ended questions. For instance, I remember her asking, “Why does the fish have gills, and why don’t we have gills?” Then she would follow up with more questions—they seemed never-ending. I developed a new solution to respond to her: I continued to answer her questions, but I would ask her open-ended questions in response to give her the opportunity to think further and to think deeper. If I didn’t know an answer, I was honest with her. I’d tell her, “I don’t know about the topic, but I’ll do research, and I’ll get back to you.” I always want the children to know that I see them and hear them.  

Like many children, Diova also had difficulty understanding how others felt, so I worked to increase her awareness of other children’s feelings using visual representations of emotions (in this case, I used paper emojis of gingerbread people). I encouraged her to reflect on whether she was making safe and respectful choices. If Diova hurt another child’s feelings, I would have her and the child use the emojis to show each other how they were feeling. Fast forward to the end of the year, she was able to independently inquire about how others felt and make choices based on that information.  

What is a children’s book that you like to share with the children in your setting and what impact has it had on their learning?   

I aim to teach children about emotional awareness, which is a lifelong skill that can help them with future relationships. I have found that reading Should I Share My Ice Cream?, by Mo Willems, helps children think about peer-to-peer challenges and the feelings involved in those challenges.  

The characters in the book experience many emotions about sharing, including thinking of others. For example, Elephant thinks of Piggie when it comes to sharing. As he considers his choices. I ask the children, “What’s a friendly choice Elephant can make?” I use this book to teach children that thinking about how their classmates may feel is a friendly choice.  

How has being part of NAEYC positively impacted your teaching and/or interactions with children?  

NAEYC has challenged me to incorporate new teaching strategies. I attended my first California AEYC conference in April of 2023 in Santa Clara. I gained extensive knowledge and new tools from the sessions I attended, including those related to play as well as techniques for family communication. Since then, I’ve changed the way I create lesson plans and feel confident creating conditions that foster play and creativity while responding to children’s assets and needs. To encourage children to find solutions for situations during free play time, I set boundaries for play, and I observe and intervene only as needed (like reminding them of expectations versus correcting them). I’m extremely appreciative of the knowledge I gained, and I look forward to the future NAEYC national and affiliate conferences for continuous development and learning. 

Photographs: courtesy of Jose Vendil
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