Education for a Global Mindset: One Leader’s Story
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“I often say that education changed my life trajectory,” Council Emerging Leaders Program participant Aida Flores shared.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants and a native Spanish speaker, Aida became a parent at 14 years old. Many would have associated those challenges with her not being able to “make it in the world or be successful,” she said. But through the mentorship of a high school social studies teacher and with the support of others in her life, Aida went on to graduate from Georgetown University.
“I knew naturally I wanted to be the teacher that I needed at the time and the teacher that can communicate with parents like mine, support students like me,” she said.
Today, Aida is the assistant principal of Darwin Elementary in Chicago and a member of the Council’s Emerging Leaders Program. We spoke with Aida about her journey in public education and how she’s shaping the next generations of global thinkers.
Interview Summary
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to become a teacher? I often say that education changed my life trajectory, and I am able to do the work that I do because of amazing educators in my life. My parents migrated from Mexico. They crossed the border, and they entrusted their children's public-school education to the local community schools.
I started off as a bilingual student, native Spanish speaker, and I went to three local public schools. I became a mom at 14 years old. And through the mentorship of a phenomenal high school social studies teacher along with other folks, I ended up going to Georgetown, studying history and Spanish.
I knew naturally I wanted to be the teacher that I needed at the time, and the teacher that can communicate with parents like mine, support students like me, whether you were children of immigrant parents, a teen parent. I wanted to be that person.
How do you help your students see themselves not only as members of their community but also as part of a global society? I serve in a dynamic school community, 500 preschoolers to eighth grade students. We've had some new students, new arrivals, coming in. And we're also a dual language school, so naturally we create this space where you're acquiring a second language. In the United States, that hasn't been something that is very common. You go to Europe, you go to all of these other countries that we work and negotiate with, and that is just part of the culture, right? And so, if you create that type of culture that's centered on humanity, on languages and lived experiences, you're already bringing that understanding.
For me, it's understanding what are the social dynamics happening across the world and how might they show up in our community. Like when we were seeing the new arrivals that were coming in, where were they coming from? What were the conditions that led to that? Because we often talk about evidence-based solutions, right? Well, we also need to understand root causes.
How has being part of the Chicago Council community impacted your life and your work? Being part of the Council and the Emerging Leaders Program has been really affirming. Sometimes we go into our professions, and we stay there for a long time, but the challenges that we're experiencing as a society and as a world, the dynamic intelligence that our children are growing up with and growing into, requires us to be better prepared in figuring out how to continue to develop yourself, but also your role in our society. And I am a firm believer in interdisciplinary learning or cross-pollinating across different areas of expertise because we're going to require that with the dynamic communities that we're going to serve, that our children are going to serve, that they're going to be a part of.
And so, for me, the Council is that type of classroom, that type of laboratory for us to be able to bring in our different lived experiences, professionally and personally, but also talk about these dynamic issues happening around the world and locally.
