My name is Melanie Casandra Bellwood. I am a Filipinx/British teacher candidate in the Bachelors of Education program at the University of Northern British Columbia. I am a learner who has spent the last decade situating myself within the context of my environment, my heritage, and myself. Today, I find that I am a hundred steps closer to being comfortable with myself as an academic, a daughter, a friend, and a human being. Welcome to my location statement.
The first thing I want you to know about me is that my academic career has been difficult. I was a good high-school student who graduated from my district with honours and began attending university during Grade 12. I started attending full-time shortly after graduation. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that I simply did not want to be there. The 15/16-year-old version of me was not yet ready to take the leap into higher education. I ended up flunking out of every course and maintained a GPA of 0.17 thereafter. I remember making the rationalization that I did not need higher education. I will work in “non-academic” fields for the rest of my life. That would be enough. It took a lot of humbling for me to come back to school and beg for another shot. Since then, I have made a promise to myself that I will take every opportunity I can to learn, because learning is a tool I have used to overcome the big and small difficulties that came with growing up.
The story of my formative years (though I firmly believe I will always be in some form of formative) is not a pleasant one. I come from a broken and hostile home. A child of two immigrant parents, I was always torn between the colonial nationalism of my British father and the colonized diaspora of my Filipino mother. This split identity is something I still reckon with day-to-day. The only place I feel like I know exactly who I am is in the classroom. Teaching has given me a shot at helping young people prepare for life by showing them the beauty of their own identities.
Teaching has not come easily to me, however. It takes a lot of work to get up every day and tell myself that I am ready to assist a room full of bright, shining stars find their place in the sky. Often, I do not feel qualified. During my own early academic career, I wanted to become an archeologist, just like Indiana Jones. When I realized that I might never be strong enough to be an adventurer like Indiana, I decided that I wanted to be a journalist and travel overseas to capture dangerous stories. My parents warned me against that academic path and instead encouraged me to become a lawyer or a doctor. I have learned always to take suggestions as “suggestions” because if you are not right for something, you are likely to be the first person to tell yourself that.
Once I realized that becoming a lawyer was not meant for me, I made the decision to find a different way to help others that involved less court-time and more personal development.
This journey to help others find betterment in themselves is not entirely unselfish. I do the work in hopes that I can build safe, inclusive, and inquisitive spaces that allow my learners to combat their own unconscious biases with the compassion and empathy necessary to make the world a better place. It has to start somewhere. I truly believe that somewhere can be the highschool classroom.
I intend to add to this location statement over time, but for now, I will say that I am the following:
A forever learner.
A consistent questioner.
A fierce dream-seeker.
A steadfast facilitator of learning and growth.