I’ve always wanted to become a teacher because of the great and also horrible

experiences I’ve had with mine. Some teachers inspired me, encouraged me, and helped me
cultivate my curiosity for learning. Others were discouraging and made me feel like a small fish
in a big pond. However, despite all of that, one thing in common about these experiences are
how my teachers made me feel at the time. Maya Angelou once said that “People will forget
what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them
feel.” I believe that as teachers, if we can inspire students with our passion and positivity for
learning that they too will have positive experiences in their learning that they will then carry
with them years from now.
Social Studies wasn’t my favorite subject growing up because 1) I felt disconnected when
learning about white males from a hundred years ago and 2) I had to learn about a place that was
about 2,400 miles away from my own home, with whom our cultures are very different. Hawai‘i
and the continental U.S. don’t have the best of histories together too, so this obviously influenced
my distaste for learning about it as well. However, as I began to get older, I found myself more
intrigued with the stories, events and details of History in general. I came to realize that History
is written in the perspective of the writer. Meaning that whatever biases, cultural or religious
background they have might also influence their writing of History. Much of the History we’ve
learned growing up were written by people from the mainland. Therefore, as a teacher I believe
that teaching students History from different perspectives is very important. My goal is to
provide my students with multiple sources/sides of the same story so that they can draw their
own conclusions on History.
I also believe that it’s important to celebrate our differences because History can
sometimes seem that we’re only learning about the details and successes of one culture.
Therefore, another goal I have is to try and incorporate learning about people of different
backgrounds here in Hawai‘i. This would definitely relate more to either Modern History of
Hawai‘i or World History and provide cohesion. Understanding the History and culture of
different places helps us to understand the people that come from there. My hope is that by
learning this, I can help to create a more aware and accepting group of students that celebrate
each other and their differences as we all influence the culture of our islands.