Columbia Heights Educational Campus, Washington, D.C.

After Fels High School, I know that the work I am about to start is going to be incredibly hard, frustrating, rewarding, and fun. I am excited to be teaching probability/statistics and SAT prep at Bell High School, which is part of the Columbia Heights Educational Campus (Bell High School and Lincoln Middle School) in DCPS. I start Monday with planning and professional development to get ready for the upcoming school year, which begins August 23. I am excited beyond belief. After seeing what my students achieved in 4 weeks in Philly, I can only imagine what a whole year of instruction will do.

I am fully dedicated to the students that I will meet in a few short weeks. My life is going to be all about them. I am going to push, motivate, push, motivate, and demand greatness from each and every student. The need is so great and the time is so short. I was blessed with the opportunity, which I took for granted, to attend college and have countless professional opportunities and successes. I want to give back to the students that are not given the chance to go to college or get a job that they are passionate about. My goal is for them to realize that they are worth something and can absolutely do whatever it is they set their mind to. It doesn't matter how many people tell them they can't. It doesn't matter how many people disregard them because of race or socioeconomic background. I saw first hand this summer that if you tell people they can, they will.

Our nation's greatest social injustice is that our nation's youth growing up in impoverished neighborhoods are given essentially zero chance of getting out of that perpetual cycle of poverty--they are given no such opportunities because the schools can't provide it for them. I want to provide it. That is what I am in D.C. trying to do. I understand that 100 percent of my students will not become the next president, or even go to college, but what I do understand is that 100 percent can begin to think about their situation differently and take ownership of their education and life. They just need someone to tell them that they can.