Im a laid-back Southwesterner just trying to make it in The Big Apple. Born in the Midwest and raised in New Mexico and North Carolina, Ive had an incredible opportunity to see a huge portion of the U.S in a relatively short period of time. I am an alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where I received three Bachelor of Arts degrees in English, Spanish, and Drama, and Im currently pursuing a career in Television and Entertainment Production. When Im not tutoring, that is.

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved travel and cultural immersion. Learning and teaching language, be it my own native tongue or one of the many Ive picked up in my adventures, have always been two of my favorite hobbies. I see language as a superpower that can unlock a piece of the world and a population of new ideas and ways of life that might never have been discovered without it. Ive lived in England and in Spain, and Ive galavanted all around the rest of Europe and parts of northern Africa. Ive taught English in Poland, French in Italy, Spanish in Whales, and a little bit of everything here at home in the U.S.

I believe in a healthy, attainable, and holistic approach to education. As a teacher, especially one of languages, literature, and writing, it has always been my goal to craft a safe learning environment for my students where learning and exams and homework lose their, often negative, connotations and, instead, become exciting opportunities that promote an insatiable intellectual curiosity and encourage a level of pride in a students recognizable accomplishments.

The world is a scary place, especially for those who know little about it. One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching culture, is building a level of tolerance in students that allows them to come face to face with ideas and lifestyles that are the complete polar opposite of their own and then be able to walk away from those interactions having not only gained new insight into the world but having also learned to appreciate the beauty of the differences.

In my opinion, the most valuable gift a foreign language instructor can give a student is not fluency in the language of instruction, but rather, so deep a love and appreciation of the language and the culture of its people that the student sees no other option than to, one day, reach fluency after years of contact with the target language.

To me, education should never exclusively be about attaining some arbitrarily set level of measurable skill. In fact, I would suggest that education is, ironically, a process of discovering just how little we all actually know. The key, however, is developing the confidence to understand that that is perfectly alright. More than anything, education is about teaching students to become good listeners, to always be open to new ideas, and to never stop challenging themselves to grow.