Who has had a profound effect on your teaching and how?

My geometry teacher had the most profound effect on my teaching because, despite my being really bad at geometry, she always remained patient and kind. She never wrote me off or lowered her expectations of me. I try to exemplify those traits every day in the classroom.

What do “success” and "failure" mean to you?

Failure means that I’ve learned something new. As long as we reflect on a failure and learn from it, failures teach us more than our successes, which often teach us the wrong lessons.

How do you strive to make those around you feel valued, appreciated, and respected?

In small groups or one-on-one, I try to listen about twice as much as I talk, and when I listen, I put everything else aside, especially my phone. In my experience, few things make a person feel less valued than when the other person pulls out a phone and starts texting in the middle of a conversation.