"My own K-12 education was intended to keep my horizons very close and to serve as a mirror reflecting back on and validating my worldview."

Hometown

Florence, MS

Department

Educational Foundations

Related Degrees

• PhD, Education: Educational Foundations

Why did you choose to pursue to pursue the PhD in Education, Foundations of Transformative Education program?

I chose to pursue a PhD in EDEF because I intend to explore how education has been wielded as a tool to bring about societal change and how it has been used to both oppress and empower different groups of people, past and present. My own K-12 education was intended to keep my horizons very close and to serve as a mirror reflecting back on and validating my worldview. It was not until I began my undergraduate program at a liberal arts college that Plato’s light of academia began to peek through. Suddenly, I was surrounded by voices and experiences that had been silenced. As my landscape changed, so did I. Through understanding others, I began to understand myself better; through hearing their stories, I learned how to tell my own. UHM’s EDEF program will ultimately equip me to contribute to a field that has meant so much to me, my development, and my liberation.

Why did you want to be a Social Media Ambassador for your program?

I wish to be a Social Media Ambassador for my program because UHM’s PhD in EDEF degree has empowered me not only to reclaim my educational story, but also to tell it. By serving as an Ambassador, I hope to share how the program can do the same for others.

Anything else you’d like to share? 

I am a fifth grade teacher in the Hawaiʻi DOE.