Student Teacher Feature: Avin Niknafs

Avin Niknafs is one of four student teachers at MBHS, being the only one involved in the science wing, working with AP Physics and biology teacher, Kennedy Crockett. Niknafs is currently enrolled at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, where she is completing her teaching credential after recently earning her master’s degree in biology. 

Niknafs spent most of her teenage years in San Diego, CA, but until she was 13, she had been living somewhere quite the opposite: Alabama. “It was pretty wild to go from a place where nobody looked like me to a place where more people did look like me, or just a greater diversity in general,” said Niknafs. Living in a fairly affluent community in AL, there was a lot of the same mix of people, rather than when she moved to San Diego, she found that it was a much more vast community of people. 

Since the last time Niknafs was in a highschool setting, she was graduating in an extremely large graduating class size of 460, now going to MBHS, which averages around a 180 graduating class size; really honing in on everyone growing up with each other, “there was definitely people at my high school graduation graduating my same grade that I was in that I did not know their names,” said Niknafs. 

 When Niknafs chose Cal Poly SLO, she originally applied under an Environmental Earth and Soil Science major, but biology was consistently the thing she found herself running back to. “I always had some affinity for my lab classes, and biology was a big part of that. So doing dissections, being hands-on, and learning about plants is really cool,” said Niknafs. Through her master’s in biology, Niknafs had the opportunity to teach undergraduate students at Cal Poly SLO, instructing them on labs, and realized that maybe she enjoyed teaching more than research; on the side, she was going on the Santa Cruz Islands trips with the students at MBHS as an expert botanist. “I had already known Avin from the Santa Cruz island trips, so when she asked if she could be my student teacher, I was like ‘absolutely,’” said Crockett. 

After coming to the decision that teaching was the field for her, Niknafs threw herself straight into the credential program at Cal Poly SLO. Niknafs describes her reason for going into the field of teaching as, “Having the ability to guide them in some capacity whether that be through the biological career, or just in life, I think that high school is a hard time for a lot of people, and some people in your life can make that easier for you,” said Niknafs, showcasing her true drive to increase engagement in biology to the freshman at MBHS.

Niknafs’ decision to student teach at MBHS was a full-circle movement, as one of her college

roommates, who dropped out of a sorority with her, Erin Grasty, also teaches here at MBHS. “I feel like she could be a good role model for students,” said Grasty, expressing how fit for MBHS Niknafs is, “she’s gonna hold kids accountable, she’s so smart at what she does; I’m excited for her to teach others, and I feel like a high school setting is a really good setting for her.”

“I think she can take really complicated ideas and use language and make it simple and tangible that students really identify with,” said Crockett, describing Niknafs. “I feel like she can just bring nuances to boring topics.” Through Niknafs’ humor, the moment you walk into Crockett’s biology class, the air is lighter, and the students have nothing but loving words to speak of Niknafs, “She has made biology 100% more interesting because she makes the lessons fun and interactive, making you want to pay more attention… she’s never boring,” said Sophia Barbis, a freshman in one of Crockett’s biology classes. 

In the biology class that Niknafs teaches with Crockett, they took a small field trip to the pier on the Embarcadero in Morro Bay, studying the diversity of intertidal organisms, also known as “belly biology,” where you look over the edge of the dock at all of the species. 

“Learning it all through someone else’s lens is a beautiful thing,” said Niknafs, recalling the trip, “someone’s gonna run up to me, ‘Oh, Ms. Niknafs, what is this?’ and I have no idea where they got it, I don’t know where they found it, I have never seen that before. But having that wonder through someone else’s eyes is cool to relive that experience.” 

Barbis recalls belly biology, “I got to see a bunch of animals that I usually don’t get to see in the tidepools, because you actually get to see them growing on things undisturbed, and it was really cool,” said Barbis. Niknafs also recollects on how she did the same field trip in college, and not seeing nearly as much, almost like the trip was very telling of the nuance of experiences she’s going to have, as becoming a teacher is different each and every day. 

Niknafs hopes to stay in the area after her student teaching, as she is “excited to put roots down somewhere and build community,” said Niknafs, continuing to show what seems to be her top priority: making her people feel welcome. Niknafs will continue to thrive at MBHS, creating a warm and relevant environment for students and representing all that MBHS stands for.