I have done karate for 14 years, in those years I practiced, instructed and participated in various tournaments. From the participation of those tournaments, I earned 32 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 24 bronze. Also I participated in a world tournament representing the United States with the Amateur Athletic Union(AAU), in this tournament I achieved the world champion title, with the AAU I earned the athlete of the year , two years in a row in 2021 and 2022 in my division also. In karate I developed a leadership trade, as I have the chance to work with kids that I have to guide through during competitions, and also I have to instruct them, so I have to show leadership, compassion, and understanding, to have the best outcome when when handling the children that look up to me. I still practice Karate today, I train every day of the week, and instruct 3 days of the week. The traits I developed from karate allowed me to be more responsable, disciplined, and competitive, which allowed me to be more successful in school and life. I always tried to maintain straight A’s, get the best grades in exams, and keep up with homework, as immigrant school was never easy but thanks to karate I was able to push myself to the point of success, earning awards like “National Hispanic Recognition”, “AP Scholar with Honor Award”, The Spirit of Excellence”, And I am top 10 percent of my graduating class.

I am a karate instructor meaning I have handle little kids almost everyday. It is known that little kids aren’t easy to handle, or easy to get them to do what you want, but I have created a methodology to be able to have fun with the kids and still have them perform the activities I need them to do to actually improve at karate. One of the things I noticed is that little kids love to give their opinion on everyday experiences, I understood that I couldn’t stop them from saying what they wanted to say, I couldn’t stop them from expressing their ideas, but I knew they had to be able to respect my class time when trying to teach them the skills. So I negotiated with them , and no, I don’t bribe them, I come with conclusions that benefit the kids and myself. And so, I split class time into karate and socializing or playing games. With that the kids get to focus for a shorter amount of time, but effectively performing all the techniques and moves of karate, and then they get time to express themselves and play fun games that are correlated to karate. The times we are living in now are very different kids have more knowledge to their hands than they ever did before meaning they have more things to say and to express, but I cannot allow that level freedom get to them to the level that they don’t view anyone as an authority, or they don’t understand when it is time to behave. So for me it was difficult at first trying to talk to them about all the little things they are curious about, and at the same time get them to learn karate, but developing that middle ground and teaching those healthy negotiating skills to the children I found as the perfect way to manage my class time properly. I feel like this methodology could be apply into actual classrooms, besides depriving students from expressing them selves and socializing due to class norms, and the existence of electronic devices, I feel like schools could split class time into getting their class focus into a shorter period of time, and then pushing for the socialization between students. One of the ways I feel like this could be done is by providing in school activities, not after school, activities where everyone can be involved, that could be physical activities and other activities for those interested in other fields, giving the opportunity to have that recreational time that prompts students to have a reason to want to go to school. I know that students don’t enjoy assisting to school, because no body enjoys being locked into a classroom all day sitting and staring at a board. Adding more activities that engage the people in the school constantly, will create a healthier learning environment, and could actually prompt students to enjoy going to school. With that I just want to end with, you can ask any elementary kid what their favorite part of school is and I bet they will say recess.