Connect Tell us why you became a teacher

I became a teacher to inspire others and to create a brighter future. Our students, our families, and our communities need us to keep doing the impossible. They need us not just on the easy days, when your lesson goes according to plan. They need us on the difficult days – the really challenging days – when your classroom disintegrates into chaos. I want to be the teacher for my students that I needed when I was their age. The students inside of our schools need the light inside of us.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

I teach an affective skills lesson that combines current events, language arts, and life lessons. During the 2021 inauguration ceremony of President Biden, a young woman by the name of Amanda Gorman read her poem “The Hill We Climb”. Amanda Gorman had a speech impediment as a child, and she worked extremely hard through speech therapy to improve her speech. As a special educator, this lesson still touches my students with disabilities, and I try to teach it every school year in January.

What would you do with the $25,000?

I would use the money to help take care of my grandparents. They have been my biggest supporters from when I first became a teacher years ago, and they are now facing intense health challenges and need a lot of care. As a full-time teacher, I am also simultaneously taking classes as I work toward my doctoral degree and helping to take care of my grandparents. Time and money are my scarcest resources, and the money would help tremendously with the expenses involved in caregiving for the elderly.