Abstract

This story begins near the dawn of my teaching career when I was teaching at Nueva Middle School in Hillsborough, a school dedicated to the education of gifted children. Not an unreasonable need, but certainly a concept that requires close examination because it is rooted in a troubling history. Seeing myself as a person who is committed to the goals and principles of social justice and equitable access, I struggled with myself a great deal before deciding to eventually take the job at Nueva. Part of my internal struggle was gaining some clarity about what it meant to be an educator as the term is most expansively defined and in that, who would I serve?