[00:00:00] (gentle music)

[00:00:05] FERNANDO MARTINEZ:
Education, like, has changed me, but it's because of what I did with my education. A sense of empowerment in there, right, that I've developed as a student, and I developed that because of the right instructor. They helped me realize, hey, this is the way the world might be, but how do you exist in it and what are you going to do about it?

You know, I don't know if I'm proud of a lot of things. I'm proud of my daughter, but other than that, I don't know what else I'm proud of that I did, that I've accomplished other than my education. Our broader pedagogical philosophy of amplifying voices and giving people the sense that the classroom belongs to the student, right? That it's a collaborative effort.

If this is my classroom, what am I gonna do to make it the best experience possible for myself and for my students? This is my education. What am I going to do to make it the best experience?

An instructor like that serves just kind of as a guide, a facilitator of the process, and that's what I wanna do. I want my students to feel empowered, to feel like they have a voice, they have some control or a lot of control in their life. So, that's what I want, you know?

That's what I want for them. That's why I wanna teach 'cause that's what teachers have done for me.

(whooshing)

(coyote howling)