Dear students,

I remember what it was like to be in school. I don’t have a school horror story or one of those celebratory school success stories. School was just something that I did because I had to.

You see so many teachers and articles focusing on the bottom and top percentiles, and yes, they deserve some attention. Teachers often have to focus their attention on the students who are falling behind, need constant correction, or who are advanced and need to go deeper, but what about that middle group? The group that does well, behaves appropriately, and never has to come up to your desk to see you?

That middle group was my group. That was my tribe.

I was a smart kid. I performed well and was excited about school. But after I got my first B and C and realized that nothing happened to me at home, I thought, “Oh, my mom doesn’t care! Hecks yes! I don’t have to work as hard.” So I didn’t, and I could have had so. much. more. success throughout school if I'd had someone encourage and push me. But because I was quiet and got As and Bs, I was overlooked.

Throughout school, I was practically invisible. In fact, only three of my teachers have ever made me feel like they sawme. In 4th grade, after I’d moved back from Oakland, CA, Mrs. Lucas quickly and unflinchingly cleaned up after I’d thrown up all over myself and my desk. That meant a lot to me because she didn’t make me feel like I was disgusting or an inconvenience – she just got in there, did the work, and made sure I was taken care of. In 11^th grade, my Algebra 2 teacher Mrs. Keaton refused to recommend me for Algebra 3 (which would have been very easy to me) and instead said she was recommending I take trigonometry. She was the only teacher who challenged me to do better than I thought I could or even wanted to.

The sterling moment for me though, was in 7^th grade, when I was going through what we could call a bit of an ugly duckling phase. My mother, being a different ethnicity than me and unfamiliar with my hair type, did not know how to take care of my hair, so I spent the majority of the 1^st semester with matted hair. I was embarrassed ALL of the time. Picture day was a nightmare. I felt ugly and no boys were interested, which, at that age, was devastating. Finally, a friend of mine’s mother, who lived across the street, took me to a salon where the hairdresser spent hours untangling my matted hair, braiding it, and then scheduling me to return. That was life-changing. When I walked into school the first day that I got to wear my hair down, Mrs. Bateman looked at me, smiled, and said, “Heeeeey!” That was it. I remember her for smiling at me. That was all she did, but with that small action, I knew I wasn’t just a name on her roster; she’d noticed me. She’d might have even worried about what could be going on at home for me. She cared.

And that’s my vow to you, students.

I will take the time to speak with each of you 1-on-1 once a week or once every other week at the least. I know I’ll have a lot going on, but knowing who you are is important to me. I vow that my focus will not just be on the kid who needs to be told to sit down every 5 minutes or the kid who always has the right answer. I vow to let you know that I see you too.

You are important. You will not fall through the cracks in my class just because you’re not disruptive or showing off. You mean something and your successes, whether personal or academic, deserve to be celebrated as much as anyone else’s.