From Student to Teacher
/My time in high school
Attended high school in the
2000s
Overall high school experience
5/10. I started at [high school name omitted] but had a terrible experience. School was very competitive and it made me doubt my intelligence. I thought I was stupid. I started failing my classes because I thought I deserved to. I am so lucky that my parents recognized how miserable I was and had the ability to provide more options. I switched to a private school in San Francisco in the middle of my sophomore year of high school. I loved my new school and found teachers and an environment that convinced me I was smart and worth an education.
Grades in high school
A's and B's.
Favorite subjects
English
Struggled with...
I always struggled with Math. I think concepts in math took longer to settle in my brain and I wasn't always able to make sense of them in the specified time period.
Favorite extracurricular
Religious
Life since high school
“I applied for a very competitive internship...I didn’t get it and was really bummed about it...[then] a job teaching English at a college access program in the Mississippi delta kind of fell in my lap. I took the job, and it ended up being the most eye opening experience I’ve ever had. I grew up so privileged in Palo Alto—and while I knew that, it was an entirely different thing to see my privileges compared to those without them. Teaching English in Mississippi that summer changed my trajectory.”
Attended college / university at
I went to Macalester College and majored in Sociology.
Places lived in US
Minnesota, Tennesse
Current occupations / past occupations
I am currently a high school Spanish Teacher.
Industries I've worked in
- Educational Services
A little introspection...
To me, being successful means...
Feeling proud of the work I have done and always making the morally correct choice--being the better person even when it's easy not to.
My definition of success has changed over time.
I used to define success as accomplishments--tangible things I could point to. It turned out once I accomplished something I was most proud of all the hard work that had gotten me there, not of the accomplishment itself.
My greatest accomplishment to date and what I’ve learned from it
I think my greatest accomplishment to date has been teaching high school Spanish in a rough area of Memphis. My students are disengaged from school, and have been so let down by a messed up education system. Pushing myself to teach them even though so many factors constantly work against me has been an incredible accomplishment.
An unexpected event that significantly changed my life and how it impacted me
I applied for a very competitive internship for the summer after my sophomore year of college. All of my friends applied too, and there was a lot of prestige associated with it. I didn't get it and was really bummed about it. I spent a bunch of time wondering what I would do that summer, when a job teaching English at a college access program in the Mississippi delta kind of fell in my lap. I took the job, and it ended up being the most eye opening experience I've ever had. I grew up so privileged in Palo Alto--and while I knew that, it was an entirely different thing to see my privileges compared to those without them. Teaching English in Mississippi that summer changed my trajectory. I decided I wanted to come back and teach in Memphis, the nearby city, so I could continue working with some of the most underprivileged and ignored people in the United States.
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My favorite spot in or around Palo Alto
Coupa Cafe
