“I grew up in an Asian household (in California) and went to school with a predominantly Asian student population. Everyone understood what it was like to be a first generation or immigrant student (I am an immigrant) of Asian parents so there was no bias because we were all in the same boat. And the FOOD!! I cannot get really good Asian, specially Vietnamese, food here in Long Island!  Teaching in the city made me more flexible in my pedagogy & willing to try new things. Each city school always had a new program to adopt each year so we were always improving upon our teaching skills and methods. The school I worked at in Brooklyn was a huge proponent of developing leaders and learners. Not only did I learn how to be a better teacher, I also was able to lead my colleagues into becoming better teachers as well. The students in the city could be challenging as well. This helped me develop my classroom management skills. I learned how to speak to students and build a rapport with them to get them to trust me so that they would invest their time and energy into the class. I bring these same skills with me to PatMed, and I’d like to believe that I’ve been able to develop some really great relationships with some amazing students. Sometimes I run my activities by my daughter to gauge the difficulty level of the assignment. I figure if she can understand my instructions, then my students can as well. Now that she is in 10^th grade and taking chemistry too, I will ask her if I’m being fair with how I grade certain questions or if I am grading too harshly. Lastly, patience. She has taught me to have patience. Everyone learns at a different pace, and everyone is capable of learning. As long as I keep that in mind, I know that my students can and will live up to my academic standards.”