Giselle Cabrera's Journey of Joyful Education
No matter the weather or what’s happening, Giselle Cabrera starts her weekday mornings with a special smile reserved for her 21 first-grade students. “You never know how far it can go or how much it can mean, a teacher smiling at a student when they walk through the door,” she explains. “I may even be the first smile they see that day.” Working with six- and seven-year-olds as a first-grade teacher at 49th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles, Giselle embraces the multi-subject curriculum enthusiastically, recognizing early education's pivotal role in laying the foundation for lifelong learning. She leans into her students’ joy and capitalizes on their playfulness, making her classroom not only a place of learning but one of laughter and safety.
Creating a Safe Learning Environment
Throughout the year, she works to build her students’ confidence in their academic abilities and themselves. One of the most important skills she focuses on is communication, specifically being able to communicate their feelings and needs to her and one another. Sometimes, those needs center on grasping a new mathematical concept. Other times, students simply need a snack. She believes it takes a village to teach children and knows she belongs to a community of adults who care deeply about her students. Her active involvement in the community fosters a sense of belonging and shared responsibility in the education process.
Giselle’s story has come full circle–she attended LA Unified schools as a child and now teaches in the district. Growing up a few miles from her current school, being fluent in Spanish, and her deep connection to the neighborhood have enabled her to connect with parents easily. “It’s important to be open to different sources of communication to build relationships with them,” she explains. She uses an online platform to communicate with some parents but also created a Google Voice number to share with the less tech-savvy ones.
“Many of my kids couldn’t name their feelings, so it was tough for them to explain themselves. It’s important to be metacognitive out loud when working with little ones. It really helps them to understand things on their level.”
Giselle's ability to offer multiple choices and adapt has been instrumental in her success as a teacher. The students in her first-grade class started the school year in drastically different places, with some being English language learners and others having exceptionalities that are not conducive to traditional learning environments. Access to specialized services can be slow and uneven, so she’s learned to quickly adjust and collaborate with other teachers to meet her students’ diverse needs. A significant focus among her fellow first-grade educators is their students’ social and emotional well-being–specifically teaching the children emotional recognition and regulation. “Many of my kids couldn’t name their feelings, so it was tough for them to explain themselves,” notes Giselle. “It’s important to be metacognitive out loud when working with little ones. It really helps them to understand things on their level.” She models this by narrating her thought processes, feelings, and actions at all times in the classroom.
When Teaching Is Your Calling
Giselle had been modeling positive behavior since she was a child when she played “school” and took on the imaginary role of the teacher. “When I was little, I lived up against an alley, and I would get all the neighborhood kids to come and sit for ‘school.’ I even had a chalkboard,” she laughs. Recently, when returning home to visit her mom, Giselle ran into a childhood friend who occasionally played the role of a student in her makeshift classroom. After all these years, he inquired what she was up to, and she shared she had become a teacher. “That makes total sense,” he said, “you’ve always been a teacher.”
Looking ahead, Giselle envisions a career dedicated to educational equity and multilingual learning. Whether she's teaching in a bilingual classroom or shaping curriculum and policy, her goal is clear—to break down barriers and empower students to thrive in a diverse and interconnected world.
