About

Our Approach

At South Bay Learning Academy I use a balanced and holistic approach and emphasizing the best problem solving and learning methods for maximizing your grades while improving study time and reducing stress. I am passionate about providing the best to my students and families; I pride myself on delivering engaging and interactive sessions, so that you get the highest quality instruction and tutoring services available. I scour the educational instruction areas as well as the Math, Chemistry and Physics content areas for the latest tools and learning methods to bring you the best academic results and ideas available today.

Background

• University Preparatory Math Instructor for (7th – 12th grades)
• Full-time mathematics instructor in Algebra, Geometry and Algebra 2. Developed curriculum, led classroom instruction, exams, tests, grading and supported students with tutoring for 300+ students.
• Parent, loves working with youth
• 10+ years in industry engineering & instruction
• Credentialed: Approved by the State of California to teach in the classroom (background check and health immunizations met per state requirements)
• UC Berkeley graduate: engineering & chemistry degrees
• South Bay resident (Cupertino)
• CA Teaching Credential, skilled in use of Educational Psychology, NLP, and accelerated learning approaches
• 300+ students instructed (middle school, high school, college & adults)
• Success with students mastering California Math and Science Standards
• Head coach for youth sports: football, track, basketball K–8 @ St. Joseph’s of Cupertino
• 5+ course year long curriculums developed from scratch, incorporating CA based standards
• Best practices used, audio visual, hands on exercises, group projects
• Worked with IEP  or special needs students  and taught with special tailored content, tools and tutoring
• Exceptional oral communication listening skills
• Triathlete and Ironman (completed Ironman Austria 2009!)

My educational philosophy:

I recognize the value of role models and mentors to our learning and success. My belief is that you can learn from them (whether still alive or not) from reading about them and extracting their values and their knowledge you believe made them develop into success individuals. Consider the great educators, scholars and philosophers: from Aristotle, Socrates, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Einstein, Milton Erickson, and Carl Jung. And another individual is Sir Isaac Newton, who said “The reason I can see so far is because I stand on the tall shoulders of those who came before me.” This underscores my idealistic philosophy in life. There is great value in learning from history and role models of the past. We can gain great insight into understanding these lessons and applying those timeless principles to our modern day problems.

Consider knowledge passed from Socrates, to Plato to Aristotle. When Plato was a young man, he went to listen to Socrates, and learned a lot from Socrates about how to think, and what sort of questions to think about. Later in time, Aristotle studied under Plato. And in turn Aristotle taught his knowledge to a young ambitious Macedonian, named Alexander the Great. And of course Martin Luther King studied the life of Gandhi, and Gandhi studied the life of Tolstoy. The same legacy is in the sciences where Einstein studied the works of Newton. And Newton studied the work of Aristotle, Descartes and Galileo.

It is well established that children, youth and young adults are highly influenced by role models they experience in their developmental years. The principles of sociologist Dr. Morris Massey on developmental stages and how they point strongly towards role modeling is a major value of my approach to parenting, teaching and working with youth. As he stated these three developmental stages:

•0 – 7 years The Imprint Period
•7 – 14 years The Modeling Period
•14 – 21 years The Socialization Period