My name is Jimmy Yao. I grew up in the northern land of China. It is known to be the land of ice and snow. I attended elementary school up until grade 4 at which time my family moved to the eastern part of China. Upon completing my middle school, I moved with my parents to Canada in 2003. I graduated from Burnaby South Secondary School and enrolled in UBC in the Bachelor of Fine Arts under graduate program in 2008.

It was a long struggle for me when I first got to Canada. I was not able to communicate with anyone other than my family. But I was grateful to at least have my family to talk to. I did my under grad program in visual art and completed my Bachelor of Fine Art degree after 5 years and took a year off to get my application together for UBC B Ed program while I volunteered in high school classroom and did some private tutoring sessions.

I am now on my journey to become a teacher that can interactive with students through my life as an educator. Having gone through the different education systems in China and Canada; and seeing the some-what two extreme sides of education; it really motivated me to become a teacher. In China, the core of student learning is based on memorization while here in Canada students are encouraged to critically reflect on their learning.

I believe that learning is just the mirrored process of teaching, and that is the best way to grow as an educator through reflection and inquiring about one’s learning as one practices as an educator.