 I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and I grew up there and I didn't move to the mainland United States until I went to grad school. I did have the experience of growing up and feeling singled out just because of my race for things that I felt weren't my fault but were rather just who I was as a white person in this small town. I didn't really realize until I got to graduate school and started studying education philosophy that there were also a number of privileges that went with being a white person because as a child you know I certainly felt sometimes afraid or angry because I felt discriminated against by other people and I also growing up in Hawaii was so fortunate to be exposed to so many other cultures. It was interesting coming here because some of the body language and the rules and things about social interactions are not the same as they are in Hawaii. So I had to really learn that when I wanted things from students it wasn't enough to just be silent. Where I came from that was enough for people to know that you were not happy with them. You know and when you raised your hand in class you would be thought of as a brash person you know and I was taught that growing up and here I had to learn that I really need to be a lot more direct with people when I wanted something from them and to make it okay in my classes for them to speak up even though it's more the norm here there are still students that feel shy just like I did because of some sort of feedback they're getting in their culture. I went to graduate school I took a class on teaching elementary music because it sounded interesting you know and I liked it and so I thought okay I'm gonna take another music education course and the only thing that they fit my schedule in the next quarter was classroom management and I just almost fell over backwards when I realized that there was this whole science to teaching you know manipulating people I suppose but you know through setting up objectives and assessments and then rewards that I could make students happier it wasn't just about me being positive it was about me being clear and making them feel like struggling with something was worth it because and supporting them through that through the way that I was managing my class and designing my curriculum and so right after that I decided to get a teaching certificate because I just wanted to know more and more and more and so I ended up doing a post-bac in music education and then one in social studies because I have my interest in diversity and history and just psychology why on earth people behave the way they do which has been really useful in directing the opera anyway my favorite class in that whole thing besides management and educational psychology was something in leadership and policy studies about teaching diverse learners and we read a lot of things about that really made me understand that not everyone is me in disguise you know people are really coming from their own place and you need to honor that because that class was so interesting I took a number of other grad classes on multicultural education and special education I have an uncle who's developmentally delayed that I grew up with and that was an issue that was near and dear to my heart and it I think in taking that class I realized that you know with any given disability everybody has it to some degree whatever it is attention deficit disorder or anxiety whatever it might be it's just not to a debilitating level you know and it's just when it gets to a point where it's interfering with somebody's ability to do meet their goals that it could be considered as a disability but it shouldn't be stigmatized because those qualities are really present in everyone I've always felt that if I could draw a connection between the richness that is out there in research and theory about how learning works to everything we know in the field of how the voice works and connecting deeply to song and melody literature that it would be a really wonderful thing