I brought a trumpet into a classroom and left with a different future.
At the time, I was doing legal work and substitute teaching. I had studied paralegal work at New York University and imagined eventually becoming an attorney. Education was part of my life, but I had not yet decided it would become my life’s work.
Then, while working with young autistic students, I brought in my trumpet and a mute for a game of musical chairs. I played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” stopping the music as the children moved around the room.
One child began singing the words.
Staff members rushed in. Their reaction surprised me until they explained that this was a child they had never heard speak.
I would not turn that moment into a claim that music unlocks every child’s language or that one teacher can arrive with an instrument and produce a breakthrough. What it changed was my understanding of my own future. A familiar song had created an opportunity for a child to participate in a way the adults around him had not heard before.
I knew I wanted to spend my career creating opportunities like that.
Start With the Child, Not the Device
I began working in schools as a substitute paraprofessional in 2005. Today, I teach elementary art and technology and serve as my school’s technology point person. Over the years, I have taught special education, repaired computers, written grants, supported families, and helped children build things that many adults would assume were beyond their abilities.
The common thread is not an enthusiasm for gadgets, although I certainly have that. It is empathy.
My years in District 75, working with students with significant disabilities and emotional and behavioral needs, changed how I understand people. They taught me to look beyond an immediate reaction and ask what might be happening underneath it.
Before deciding that a child will not participate, I want to know whether the room is too cold, whether the child needs water, whether the noise is overwhelming, or whether a quiet corner or something to squeeze might help.
These are not glamorous interventions. They rarely appear in a photograph celebrating classroom innovation. But sometimes the most useful adjustment is not a new app. It is noticing the child sitting in a hoodie beneath an air conditioner.
That same attention should guide how we use technology. Before asking what a tool can do, I ask whom it can help and what obstacle it might remove.
Making Something That Matters
When I first moved into teaching technology, I collected used computers through Freecycle, repaired them, and placed them in teachers’ classrooms. The equipment was not new, but it could still serve a purpose.
That work became a pattern: Find a need, locate a resource, and make the connection.
Through DonorsChoose, I have raised more than $30,000 for classroom projects. I have also pursued public funding to bring additional resources into schools. Grant writing is not the part of teaching most people picture, but an idea cannot become a classroom experience without materials, equipment, and support.
Some of my most meaningful projects have involved 3D-printed assistive hands through the e-NABLE community.
I have introduced children as young as six, seven, and eight to this work. Older elementary students have studied and printed hand designs that my cousin encountered while pursuing graduate work in engineering.
That comparison has stayed with me. We often decide what children can handle before giving them a chance to try. With guidance and a meaningful goal, they can engage with surprisingly complex ideas.
A hand project brings together design, measurement, assembly, and problem-solving. It also introduces a question that does not fit neatly into a technical lesson: How might something we make affect another person’s life?
Working with a collaborator, I explored superhero-inspired designs, including an Iron Man-style hand that was featured in the Museum of Science and Industry’s “Wired to Wear” exhibition.
The appearance mattered to us. We wanted to think beyond function and consider what a child might feel wearing the device. Could it reflect an interest? Could it invite curiosity or pride?
No design can guarantee acceptance, and no child should have to look like a superhero to deserve respect. But considering the wearer’s experience made the engineering more thoughtful. That was precisely the lesson I wanted my students to encounter.
Creativity Before Spectacle
In my current classroom, art and technology overlap constantly.
A grant-funded green-screen studio lets students take photographs, change backgrounds, and imagine themselves in settings they choose. The activity involves editing and digital tools, but it also involves composition, storytelling, and decisions about what an image should communicate.
With younger children, I use AI-generated coloring materials as one way to provide targeted practice. I also see possibilities in using AI to prepare different versions of a reading passage so students can approach a shared topic at different levels.
My enthusiasm is not a belief that every AI output belongs in a classroom. I still have to read it, evaluate it, and decide whether it serves the students in front of me. The point is to create another entry into the work, not to outsource knowing the learner.
That interest in accessible, engaging practice also informs Kamercrafts.com, my project developing free browser-based literacy and math games.
Whether I am designing a game or planning an art lesson, I return to the same question: What will make a child want to try, and what support will help that child keep going?
Access Is Part of the Work
During the pandemic, that question became urgent in a different way.
Families had devices, but devices had problems. A tablet that would not connect could stand between a child and the classroom. Handing out equipment was only the beginning.
I set up a troubleshooting station outside school so families could get help. I also created instructional videos that walked people through fixes themselves.
One of my favorite responses came from a grandmother who told me that even she could follow the instructions.
I loved that comment because it captured what I wanted the videos to accomplish. Technical knowledge is useful, but being able to share it clearly is what makes it useful to someone else.
At home, I also printed hundreds of mask ear savers and left them in bags in our building’s laundry room for neighbors to take and distribute. It was a small contribution, made with equipment and skills I already had.
Sometimes helping means designing something complex. Sometimes it means explaining a setting patiently or leaving a bag of useful objects where someone can find it.
Why I Stay Close to the Classroom
I earned school building and district leadership certifications because I wanted the ability to contribute beyond one classroom. I remain interested in leadership, and I value the mentors who have encouraged me to consider what comes next.
But I have also turned down an opportunity to move into a broader instructional technology role because I was not ready to stop working directly with children.
I do not regret that decision.
In 2016, receiving an award for school technology was a proud professional moment. Having my grandmother there made it especially meaningful. She had taught art, and she could see the work I was doing.
Yet the moments that keep me teaching are often smaller: a student trying again after a print fails, a child finding a way to participate, or a family discovering that a problem can be solved.
I want students to leave my classroom knowing more about art and technology. I also want them to understand that their ideas and abilities can be useful to someone else.
That is what connects the trumpet to the repaired computer, the green screen to the printed hand.
The tool is only the beginning. The work is noticing what we might do with it, and for whom.
