It’s time for another #TeacherTuesday! This week, get to know Chris Cabrera, Middle School Math and Science teacher.
Chris Cabrera came to Hillbrook in 2015. He was attracted to Hillbrook’s openness to try new things, which really resonated with him as an educator. “I am a very curious person,” he says, “and it is my nature to think about how things can be made better and to experiment with the objective to improve and solve problems.” He believes that Hillbrook School provides its teachers with the flexibility to start on a path without necessarily knowing where that path will lead. “I find this to be a very rewarding aspect of working as a teacher at Hillbrook,” he shares.
Chris remains most impressed by how open and accepting Hillbrook students are with respect to each other’s differences. He loves how students at Hillbrook are sensitive and inclusive with respect to each others’ needs. In addition, he finds it refreshing that Hillbrook students “take healthy risks.” He believes that, “trying different things, unhindered, can be very powerful for anyone but especially for young people.”
Chris’s favorite unit is the Maker Faire Unit. He admires his students for taking part in the whole experience because it is a moment in time when students leverage a variety of skill sets. From learning to work effectively in a team to working up resilience, the Maker Faire Unit provides a great deal of real-world experience and growth for each individual student. Chris shares that, “without exception, every student group brings something of meaning and value to the Maker Faire, and every student is proud of what they have accomplished because it was not easy and yet they persevered despite it.”
In the next few months here at school, Chris is most looking forward to continuing to be a supportive co-mentor to his students as they work up to Maker Faire 2019 and seeing their aspirations and dreams come to fruition with respect to this work.
We asked Chris one last question: What is the last place you visited/traveled to or book that you read? “The last book I read was Plato’s Republic. This book was on my reading list for a while. As a lover of philosophy, I enjoyed this classic work very much for it allowed me to think deeper about the meaning of things and the very different perspectives of others.”
