Zakkiyya Greene

I attribute my success to starting early and gaining hands-on experience in the field. I've been in education since I was in 5th grade, when I was 10 years old, and I had obtained enough education to be able to assist teachers with actually presenting knowledge to students. That early foundation taught me that education is about what actually works with students. My work with the developmental disability community, especially after completing medical assistant school, was transformative. I worked with adults with developmental disabilities from age 18 to about 24, and that experience taught me so much about human development and individualized approaches. I learned that each individual has a developmental plan, and I was asked to contribute ideas about what methods could help each person gain skills. This taught me to focus on the individual and adapt my methods accordingly. One of my most meaningful achievements has been sitting with a child who was stated to have developmental disability and being told this child will not learn how to read, and then literally showing the child how to read and write in 5 to 7 days. That's why I say human development is my achievement, because I've been able to take situations where it was believed that students didn't have the ability, or the time frame would be too far out, and turn that into a display of results in a quicker time manner. I've learned that the issue is not that a child can't read, it's that the child hasn't been taught how to read properly. I've always taken the role of being an educator and stuck to that, never crossing the line into thinking I'm a parent, because when those lines get crossed or confused, it causes confusion to the child, delays results, and delays the display of the child actually gaining the skill.

In developmental learning spaces, progress doesn’t always follow timelines; it follows trust, patience, and consistency.”“Human development work requires you to stay flexible enough to change your approach, but grounded enough not to change your belief in the student.”

One of the biggest challenges in education right now is the situation with the education system itself. It's not the education system itself, it's the people that's working for the education system and the displays they have been doing. There are people who are there to sit there and participate with children speaking Ebonics, which is just crazy. Another major challenge is the confusion between influence and manipulation in education. These have been confused, and that creates real problems for how we approach teaching and human development. The challenge is maintaining proper boundaries and roles as an educator. There's a thin line between being an educator and other roles, and when those lines get crossed or confused in an adult, it causes confusion to the child, it causes destruction, it delays results, and delays the display of the child actually gaining the skill. This is true whether working with youth in K-12 or with adults in the developmental disability community. If you cross that line of thinking that you are this person's parent and performing those types of actions, then it's gonna delay the results and the actual goal that you was trying to reach.

The most important value to me is maintaining clear professional boundaries and staying true to my role as an educator. I've never taken the role of being a parent to the students I work with. I've always taken the role as being their educator, and I stick to that because it's a thin line, and when those lines get crossed or confused, it causes confusion to the child, destruction, and delays results. Another core value is believing in each student's capacity to learn and refusing to accept limitations that others place on them. When I've been told that a child with developmental disability will not learn how to read, or that the time frame would be too far out, I've been able to show that child how to read and write in 5 to 7 days. That's because I believe the issue is not that the child can't read, it's that this child hasn't been taught how to read properly. I also value choosing to educate in an influential manner rather than a manipulative manner for human development. I made a conscious choice to focus on the human development field and to use methods like chess, STEAM art, and individualized approaches to help students gain skills. Finally, I value the ability to balance my career with my individual life as a citizen, which is why I do substitute teaching so I can work on a time that's suitable for me while still being able to assist with influential education.