Teaching Values and Mission

The caterpillar is a fascinating creature. In a short amount of time they have to grow up to 20,000x their own body weight in order for them to have the nutrients and energy ready for a transformation. This is the symbol for my classes because I hope to foster and inspire a curiosity and provide the nutrients needed for my my student’s own transformations. Whether it is for the mind, the spirit, the body or the environment, my students leave my classes grown, and more ready to deepen their own self-knowledge and more direction for who they are.

I teach writing and poetry, which helps with unlocking creativity, bettering communication and self-discovery. I teach yoga, to merge the body, the mind and the spirit. I teach piano to awaken the creative spirit. I teach environmentalism to help create stronger connections to the natural world.

Find out more about each of my classes below.

Teaching Story

Teaching for me began serendipitously, as most good things do.

Over the past few years I’ve had over 40 students from five different countries including India, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Taiwan and China. My experiences teaching in different capacities has shaped me into a teacher who can connect with all kinds of students. Below is more about my story.

I’ve created and taught a poetry workshop with New Light, in Kolkata India.

I was a young freshmen in college in 2015, fueled by my big dreams with little grounding in reality. I had learned about New Light, an organization in Kolkata India that worked with sex workers and their children through a class my freshmen fall and boldly emailed them to apply for an internship. I received funding from the college and arrived with no tangible preparation except my hope to learn.

When I was there I realized I had not much to offer, and took up more space and caused more trouble than I was worth. So I came up with teaching poetry to three students whose English were good. Through making up this class I saw the power of writing for young minds and fell in love with teaching poetry and have created numerous workshops with kids all over the world.

I’ve taught Environmental Education and English in Saujana permaculture farm in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Teaching here in 2017 taught me the importance of re-enchanting nature in our world today for our children. I didn't think I taught as much as I learned.

These children were in rural areas, yet they were still becoming more disconnected from nature due to the large palm oil industries taking over their land, and their parents needing to stop farming and find work in nearby cities or larger towns. These children are thus growing with a disconnection from their surroundings because of digital education and a yearning for city-life.

This experience showed me the importance of teaching environmental appreciation and values.

I’ve taught gardening at an after school garden in Chester, Pennsylvania USA.

I received a grant to study plant spirituality and communication and also taught at Chester Eastside garden in 2019. Chester, PA is considered a food desert, and so teaching the children about growing food and the wonders of being able to eat from the Earth was especially important.

This experience showed me the importance of food justice and food equality in the world, as well as well as the need to reconnect with our food.

So much of the children in our world nowadays only understand food as something that appears in plates, platters, restaurants, magazines, but not as something that is in fact connected to the greater world. Through invigorating interest and connection to food through plants, students are more able to see how they are in fact, connected to the larger world.

I’ve taught yoga online during the pandemic and at Elevate Yoga Studio in Folsom PA, USA.

I began the practice of yoga seriously in the spring of 2019 in college. It was a journey of reconnecting my mind, and spirit to my body. To me yoga’s main goal and practice is this union, and through strengthening our unity within, we can strengthen our connection to others, and the environment.

During the pandemic in 2020 Spring, my senior year yoga was something I turned to to calm me down, and I began offering free yoga sessions to my community. It was rewarding to see how important connecting with the body is and becomes during times of stress and I wanted to deepen my own practice and exploration of yoga.

I got my yoga certification from Arohan Yoga in Rishkesh, India in the spring of 2021, and deepened my understanding of how yoga is a practice to merge the mind, body and spirit. Now, I teach at Elevate and I love seeing my students deepen their own understandings of their own body. Since then I’ve taught privately as well as group classes.

I’ve taught writing starting in the fall of 2020, starting on Outschool and my own community.

Writing has always been my passion and my strength, so when the opportunity for me to teach writing to students came about, it seemed natural and organic for me to embark on this journey. This started as expansion of my community and I love watching young minds become more critical thinkers, appreciators and discoverers of the world.

Teaching writing shows me the importance of writing as a tool of shaping one's understanding of the world. To become adept at writing is also to sharpen and shape the pathways in which you think.

I’ve taught piano to my community all my life

I’ve been a student of piano since the age of five, and in my time growing up have gotten the ABRSM Diploma certificate for performance in 2012, have won over 25 top three awards in various competitions across Hong Kong and China, and have been part of numerous chamber, orchestral and compositional experiences.

Teaching piano is also teaching responsibility, skills on discipline for practice, and curiosity for creativity. There is nothing more joyous than being able to create music that you enjoy as well, and I hope to inspire my students to not only become great pianists, but also lovers of music!

I’ve taught numerous workshops on Zero Waste across the US.

I started my first environmental education program in 2013 when I collaborated with Green Education Center in rural Lijiang, China. We launched an environmental educational exchange program between students at my high school and students at local high schools in LiJiang to discuss how each community treats waste.

Since then I have done many different projects involving waste such as being the President’s Sustainability Research Fellow of Waste Management in 2016-2017, starting the student club Swarthmore Zero Waste (SZW) at Swarthmore in 2018, and have done many workshops throughout the United States such as in UC Berekeley, at Swarthmore College, and at Post Landfill Action Network’s conference.

Classes