Manny Herrera is the Elementary Faculty Advisor and lecturer for the Berkeley Teacher Education Program (BTEP). He graduated from UC Berkeley's teacher education program in 2007 when it was known as Developmental Teacher Education (DTE). Manny's masters thesis focused on re-envisioning family engagement as he knew family voice was key to teaching to the whole child. By bringing family voice into the classroom space through home visits he disrupted schools' traditional views on family participation. He continued this action research into his actual teaching practice by starting every school year with home visits where he engaged families to share their aspirations for their students and past experiences with schooling. As a teacher and school leader, his goal has always been to ensure all students feel seen, heard and cared about so they can bring their full selves to do the complex thinking in the classroom.
Manny has taught 2nd through 5th grades in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, Calif. He has coached teachers in math k-8 to develop a critical lens on their facilitation of the curriculum so all students see themselves as mathematicians. Manny also served as an assistant principal and principal at the same school in which he taught. Now, his focus is teaching and coaching pre-service teachers to do the beautiful and challenging work of creating spaces where young learners thrive.
