OES Spotlight

Malia Wilkins fell in love with the Pacific Northwest the first time she came here. Born in Maui, Hawaii, and raised in Southern California, attending the University of Oregon was a big change for her. “But once I got used to the weather, I never went home,” she said. “I loved everything about Eugene and the Pacific Northwest.”

She earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the U of O. After graduating, she spent four months studying Spanish in Costa Rica, living with a host family, and then went backpacking in Europe with a friend for four months.

Wilkins returned to live with her family in Southern California, but had a heartfelt desire to get back to the Pacific Northwest. She accepted a friend’s invitation to work in their restaurant in Portland and when she’d saved up enough money, she would travel again, with destinations including Australia, Bali, Argentina, and Europe.

“I was in Nice, France when 9/11 happened,” she said. “We had just arrived that morning on an overnight train from Barcelona, got to our hotel, and took a nap. And when we woke up, the world had changed.” She said that she felt somewhat invincible because she was young (23), but also, “I felt safer because we were in another county. I kind of wanted to stay there in my little bubble.”

But she did return to the U.S., and set her sights on developing her career. Her first contact with OES came through answering a Craigslist ad for a position in the afterschool program. That led to a role as a substitute teacher and deciding to pursue a master’s degree in education. After completing graduate school, she contacted OES again, hoping for an opening. There was a position available as a long-term substitute, and she accepted it. That led to a part-time position as a sixth-grade humanities teacher, in addition to continuing with the after-school program.

She stopped working with the after-school program once she became a mother, and shifted into a role as a half-time humanities, half-time history teacher, which she stayed in for seven years. For the past six years, she has been a full-time, seventh-grade history teacher.

Middle School history class involves more than what has happened in the past: they also talk about current events. That can be challenging when a lot of things are happening all at once. “Kids bring in things they want to talk about, and we try to save space for that. We try to make sense of what they’re seeing and hearing, what they’re reading and from which sources; we talk about what reliable sources are, rather than ‘I saw it on YouTube so it must be true,’” Wilkins said.

“We encourage them to be more curious than certain, like we do in the overall OES community,” she continued. “To challenge the idea, not the person, and to understand that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. As a teacher, I'm not here to tell the kids what to think …  I’m here to try to teach them how to think, how to think for themselves and how to weed through the messages that are coming to them and to try to make sense of our world, which we’re all trying to do.”

As the students learn about American history, which in seventh grade focuses on colonial times forward, they are looking through a modern lens at history, which includes reading historic documents that refer to Indigenous people as “savages.”

“So we have to have a conversation about that,” said Wilkins. “If you’re quoting someone, then you put quotations around that word, but what does using that word divulge about the perspective and judgement of these individuals?”

Wilkins said that her approach to teaching is very people oriented and that relationship building is very important to her. “A couple years ago I set a goal of trying to connect with every single kid, every single student by name at least once every day as they came into class. And to try to show them that I see them, I value them, and that I appreciate them. I want every student to feel that in my classroom.”

To her, engaging with students means encouraging lots of discussion in class. “I teach them to listen, not just to talk,” Wilkins said. “Because everyone can talk, but listening is a little bit harder. So I give them lots of opportunities to practice.”

“And I like humor. I mean, I teach seventh grade, and you have to be able to laugh if you’re going to survive in this environment,” she said, smiling. “I fit right in because I can joke around and, at this exact moment, I’m the mom of two OES seventh graders too [Miles and Everett]. So, boy, I am in seventh grade all the time, but it’s been awesome. It’s such a special experience to be able to have my kids attend school here.”

Her husband also works at OES, in facilities, so it’s really “a family affair.” She appreciates many things about being at OES. “The parent support is so amazing, and the community really cares,” Wilkins said. “It’s such a beautiful campus, and there are all these incredible opportunities for the kids, like the school trips. I just watched the seventh graders put on their theater scenes and that was something just happening on a random Monday afternoon.”

“This is my home,” she said. “This is my community.”