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This is my little sister, Chloe. We are four years apart, but since she is my only sibling, we grew up super close. Growing up with a sister has defined me as a person. Whether it was dancing around, playing with our dolls, or having sister sleepovers, all of my earliest play memories include her. I would say that growing up with only a little sister has made me sensitive, a leader, and empathetic.

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I grew up in the same Methodist church all of my life and was baptized as a baby. This has been the greatest foundation to who I am today and the morals and values I hold close. I wouldn't be who I am without my faith and involvement in church! I now get to give back to my same church at home by teaching my Kindergarten Sunday School class about Jesus!

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From K-12, I attended public school in Allen ISD and graduated from Allen High School (the biggest HS in Texas). I was involved in cheer and PALs in high school, which were my fun periods and to me, my "play". Our student body was over 7,000, so social play was shaped by divides usually based off of friendship circles, gender, and wealth. I saw the differences and how that influenced friendships and activities even as early as elementary school, like when boys during recess were encouraged to grab a ball and play sports while girls were given a sitting area to chat.

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Throughout my life, my parents have always made travel a priority. My sister and I would get checked out of school to go on fun, educational, and well-planned vacations. Having the opportunity to travel all over the world with my family has let me explore new cultures through play and fun activities. Activities that seemed normal to my sister and I growing up I had realized later how lucky we were to experience.

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As a girl myself with only one sister, our house was only full of stereotypical "girly" toys to play with, and we did all of the "girly" sports. We played with our American Girl dolls, did dance, gymnastics, and cheer growing up, and were always talked to about being ladylike. This extended to every area of my life, including elementary school as well when girls and boys had different expectations. However, I love being girly and remaining within this norm.

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Being born and raised in Allen, Texas, meant my play was shaped by a nice suburban environment with plenty of safe spaces like parks, playgrounds, and organized sports. Because my community had resources, a lot of my play was structured and scheduled rather than spontaneous. At the same time, Allen culture deeply influenced how play looked. Friday night football games were community wide events where play and belonging came together. Getting to grow up with all of my friends in one place really shaped me as a person.

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When I was little, I used to be annoyed because I wasn't allowed to watch Nick or Disney, which took away from feeling in control of my own play. Instead, I could only watch PBS, read books, or go outside for entertainment, with weekly trips to the library with my mom and sister. Both of these experiences shaped me as I developed into the person I am today. It gave me a love for learning early on and I found myself always being curious and wanting to know more.

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My family has always been at the center of how I experienced play and joy. We are very close, and from a young age I always felt comfortable expressing myself and being creative around them. Whether it was family game nights, vacations, or just spending time together at home, laughing, our shared experiences created playful moments that strengthened our bond. These opportunities to try new things with the people I love most shaped how I view play as something relational and meaningful, and it just kept getting better the more we grew.

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Growing up, I hadn’t realized that agency was the reason I liked or disliked certain grades more than others. Now that I’ve learned about it, I see how much it can make or break a school year, and I know I want to build in many opportunities for agency in my future classroom. In a grade that I loved, like third grade, I remember that we often got to learn in our own way and choose how we wanted to receive information. For example, my teacher took the time to learn about our hobbies and wove them into her lessons, which made learning feel exciting and personal. We were also given “grown-up” privileges, like being trusted to take our shoes off in class, and even those small choices built responsibility and confidence. In contrast, second grade felt very different. We had little to no agency, and most decisions were made for us. I still remember being assigned to research frogs for a month-long project. I wasn’t interested in frogs at all, and because I didn’t get to choose my topic, the project felt more like a chore than an opportunity to learn. That lack of choice took away my curiosity and motivation.

This connects to one short section in this week's reading about the little girl Elena. She was usually more softspoken, but when her teacher gave her the chance to explore something she was interested in, nursing, she lit up. By letting her use a blood pressure monitor on her friends, the teacher tapped into Elena’s curiosity, bringing her out of her shell. That example reminded me so much of my own third-grade experience. Just like Elena, I felt more motivated and confident when my teacher made room for my interests and gave me choices. It shows how even small opportunities for agency can completely change how a student engages, especially for kids who might otherwise stay quiet or disconnected.

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I feel like the culture of where I came from has had a huge impact on my life thus far. Growing up, I was surrounded by strong schools, plenty of resources, and a community that often emphasized achievement and competition. That environment shaped the way I see education, success, and even relationships with other people. At the same time, it also made me more aware of the differences in opportunities that exist depending on where someone grows up, and I think that’s influenced the kind of teacher I want to be in the future. In my family too, the culture has always been calm and respectful. My mom has never raised her voice at me, we’ve never fought, and my little sister and I have followed that example, which has made us all get along really well.

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This week's content has been my most interesting yet. I had noted during the Babies movie that I had always known that most learning happens in the first 12 months of someone's life, but that has been hard to believe before deeply examining that this week through the content and the Babies movie. I feel like in the past in other classes, we had just talked about how different cultures come together to create the learning culture in the US, but seeing how drastically different (and sometimes more effective) learning styles and ways of life are in other countries, it has opened my eyes to how America could be doing better, and what we already do well.

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When I was in elementary school, I felt like control and especially bias played a big role in my life growing up. Control was not as much, it was similar to what we talked about in class, where every student was assigned a carpet spot and we sang a song about keeping our lips closed and hands in our laps. I didn't notice the sometimes harmful nature behind that until reading this article. I was always a well-behaved student, the kind of kid who followed rules and never caused trouble, and would cry if my clothespin ever got moved from green to yellow. However, even with that, I recall feeling hurt in first grade when my favorite teacher, Ms. Phillips, formed a particularly close bond with another girl in my class. She would sit on her lap during story time and even brag about how she sometimes got to go to Ms. Phillips' house after school. I don’t think she meant harm, but the favoritism and bias made me feel invisible, like no matter how “good” I was, I couldn’t earn the same kind of attention or warmth. In Ms. Bailey’s class, kids were encouraged to take risks, ask questions, and show their personalities with agency being treated as a right. In my class, though, control and bias shaped who got to experience that kind of relationship with the teacher. Even though I followed all the rules, I didn’t get the same trust or sense of belonging. Looking back, I realize how much teacher choices about closeness, control, and bias influence whether kids feel like active participants in their learning or like they’re just following along.

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Our discussions on Tuesday and Thursday have given me more information on how abelism includes expectations on how "normal" learning should look. My favorite part of this unit was today, when in the video, she said that our response to this should be catering the environment to people with disabilities, rather than forcing them to cater to the world. This is exactly what we are called to as teachers! I have learned that teaching isn't one size fits all, and you will never encounter the same type of student twice. It means removing barriers and rethinking the norms that limit their voice and agency. One big takeaway for me is that agency isn’t just about giving kids “freedom” but about creating the conditions that make self-advocacy and decision-making possible for every single kid, not just the ones that seem like they deserve it. For example, when teachers provide multiple means of expression (verbal, written, visual) or allow students to move or take breaks, they’re being accommodating and actively making space for students to influence their own learning.

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In my mind, the "more than human world" refers to everything in nature that exists beyond people, like animals, plants, water, weather, and the earth itself in the outdoors. When children interact with the more-than-human world, they develop important capabilities, such as curiosity and responsibility, while also building creativity, sensory awareness, problem-solving skills, and a sense of connection to the earth. I think it is important that children learn to observe, care for, and appreciate the natural world around them. For me, in elementary school, I loved playing outside and noticed these same skills being built in myself as I look back. I loved butterflies, and growing up, we had a bush in our backyard that attracted butterflies during the spring and summer. I remember my sister and I spending most of our days outside observing and trying to touch them, which helped build my spark for outdoor play.

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Gender played a big role in my life growing up. For one, I was raised with only one sister. Every toy that we shared was a stereyotypical "girl" toy, like American Girl Dolls, Girls brand legos, and just pink and purple stuffed animals. We never seemed to care because we liked falling into that more "girly" role. This was semi-pushed by my parents. In the picture, my mom is teaching me how to bake when I was 2, which could be more seen as a "girly" role as well. I still love to cook, bake, and do things that fall into my gender role, but can't help but think how differently I would have been raised if i was born a boy.

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Growing up, these both played a huge role in my development. When I think about it, I notice that some classes that I was in did an excellent job at it, and some didn't emphasize it as much. The one that comes to mind was my favorite year, 3rd grade, where the entire class felt like a family. As a result, I felt a genuine sense of belonging and community. This was due to several factors, including regularly playing games, teaching about kindness and empathy, and exploring interests, so that we can have a better shared understanding. For example, whenever a student was absent, my teacher always encouraged us to write them a short note saying that we missed them when they returned the next day. I think that in a classroom environment as the teacher, you really have the chance to foster all 4 aspects of community by establishing belonging, encouraging shared understanding, problem-solving/ helping out, and care.

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My school district growing up was the biggest in Texas and included students from many various backgrounds. However, I moved to the "rich" elementary school, which was over 90% white kids in West Allen. Coming from a partially white background myself and only experiencing it easy, I didn't expect how different it would feel from my previous school, which was more diverse. I also come from a Native American and Hispanic background, making me one of the only "different" ones in class. I remember crying to my mom about how the kids were judgmental and mean to me about my more bushy eyebrows, leg hair, and just my culture in general that I used to be proud of, which I had not experienced at all at my old school, which did a better job at having these conversations about differences. It was super weird the difference that it made on me to have a school that put emphasis on difference, to then none at all.

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Language has definitely shaped my life, even though I only speak English. I tried learning Spanish in high school due to my graduation requirements, but I realized how much harder it is to pick up a new language later in life compared to when you’re a kid. I tried to drop three times! Growing up, most people in my hometown spoke English, but a lot of my classmates were native Spanish speakers, especially in High School, and some elementary schools were almost entirely Spanish speaking, closer to the east side of my town. Looking back, I see how powerful it is for kids to grow up bilingual since they’re not just learning two languages but also learning two ways of thinking and connecting with people. I can see how, as a teacher someday, you would really need to meet each kid where they are and not

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This week's lecture was one of the most insightful yet to me. Coming in, I don't think that I would have known how to deal with trauma. At my high school job, Flour Power (a kids' cooking studio), we would have summer camps where I would deal with kids who would get dropped off by a different person each day, had severe temper problems, and much more. I used to think I was doing the right thing by eliminating them from the play (cooking, learning about recipes) when acting out and putting them in a timeout in the lobby. Looking back, it would fix the behavior, but the entire class would then be judging or not inclusive since they missed out on so much play. In the future, I will think about ways to maybe not solve entirely, but give them the agency to figure out what regulation works best for them while still being able to engage in play and conflict. There is more harm that comes from elimating them than good.