During my classroom observations, a person who has been super inspiring and pivotal in the direction of my actions and work is Teacher Mar, one of the two teachers at the Sama-Bajau Activity Center.
To protect the kids' privacy, I've attached a photo from my first week here of the students hugging Teacher Mar goodbye. This is one instance of many touching student-teacher interactions.
From Teacher Mar, I learned that leadership is not just about giving commands and making executive decisions but that it's also about uplifting others. In the classroom, Teacher Mar empowers the Sama-Bajau children to embrace their culture while learning. She helps reinforce their learning by connecting it to their identity. Considering that she herself is not Sama-Bajau, this means that Teacher Mar skillfully and artfully exercises empathy in her teaching.
This is essential, especially because CFI's activity center is their first exposure to school. Once the kids graduate from CFI's program, they will ideally go on to enroll in the general city public schools. However, the general city public school system is not personalized and will not cater to their minority IP identity. Thus, in tying their formative school experiences to being proudly Sama-Bajau, Teacher Mar is hopefully instilling the resilience and certainty that they matter despite the lack of an inclusive educational system.
As a resident advisor for first years hailing from different backgrounds, I am inspired by Teacher Mar. I hope I can make my future residents feel like they belong at an Ivy League like Columbia. As for the rest of my LIA work, I am working on a write-up pertaining to my interviews with the teachers, children, and parents. As I write, I will try to embody Teacher Mar's energy and compassion so that supporters of CFI can feel what I've experienced as well!
My name is Tara Lago, and I am a Rabi Scholar and Laidlaw Scholar at Columbia University pursuing a major in neuroscience and behavior with a concentration in chemistry. With more than 3 years of research related to social science, depression, animal behavior, and computational neuroscience, I aim to study and apply the basic neural mechanisms that underlie human health.
I am passionate about helping my community, inside and outside of the lab. Whether that be creating inclusive programs for my first-year residents as a Resident Advisor or advocating for the freedom to read with the New York and Brooklyn Public Library, I seek to create supportive spaces that encourage intellectual, emotional, and social growth. After my undergraduate education, I plan to work in academic medicine, with the ambition of obtaining an MD-PhD in the future.
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The idea of "the power of a good teacher" is also something that resonates with me and has come up in my LiA - learning from my peers and supervisor has been really inspiring to me as well! Your LiA seems super powerful and I am excited to learn more about your final weeks!