The Cultivating Excellence (CE) Residency prepares single subject teachers from multiple disciplines, offering opportunities for interdisciplinary curriculum planning and collaboration. UCLA CE-Residency focuses on racial literacy, adolescent development, and transformative social emotional learning, with the goal of fostering healing restorative spaces that allow middle school teachers and leaders to co-construct and create ecosystems that can allow students to thrive individually and collectively. UCLA CE places pre-service teachers in southeast Los Angeles and Norwalk La Mirada. Further, CE UCLA engages leaders in Glendale and Lancaster to engage in critical responsive leadership that centers multiple layers of restoration and learning.
“The Cultivating Excellence program has helped me understand what it means to develop positive and meaningful spaces of community. There is a strong transformative nature in sharing my motive for pursuing education and redefining what belonging means within the context of a classroom.”
Josemanuel Ortiz
“Participating in the Cultivating Excellence program has enriched my professional and personal growth, emphasizing the importance of self-care in my roles as a teacher and an individual. I value the program’s balance of academic rigor and holistic wellness.”
Aaliyah Farias
When I was looking for a Teacher Education Program, I was looking for a program whose values aligned with mine.
I don’t see teaching as a job. I see teaching as part of who I am and as a way to enact change in this world.”