Marcia Hines-Colvin

Be the Change


My Philosophy of Education
As an eternal student and as an instructor, I believe in the value of individual creativity and
appreciate the important role community plays in personal development. I want to apply what I
know and learn by nurturing, advocating, and protecting the art-of-being via the preservation of
culture, language, personal history, and individual dignity.
While cultivating awareness that we all need a sense of belonging to the greater whole, my
intent is to help safeguard individual rights, heritage, identity, and freedom of expression. Human
spirit is a fire we must tend and feed in ourselves and in each other.
When I encounter people, I see each person; his or her education, heritage, experience,
ethnicity, age, and belief system are parts of a dynamic whole, and integral to individual being not a
subset or a classification.
As a middle and high school student, I often felt adrift and out of sync with my environment
and one person whose faith in me was as strong as my own made all the difference. My purpose, as an
educator and human, is to guide those who have something to say, to find their voice and to encourage
those who are looking, to follow their path.
Doing my best to practice and model his virtues, I often think of Saint John Baptist De La
Salle who said, To touch the hearts of your pupils and to inspire them is the greatest miracle you
can perform. I am blessed as many of my students thank me for making a difference in their lives
or, at the very least, in their classroom experiences (even a few who failed the course).
They thank me for helping them believe in their own worth; understand their own truth;
express their thoughts, emotions, and spirit; and grow. I strive to be a reflective and transformative
educator while learning alongside my students.