A Leader That I Admire

    I believe that their have been many people in my life that I could view as leaders through different lenses based on the activity at hand. There are many people that I look up to and admire that I have both met in real life or have watched through a screen. When thinking about pin pointing one leader that was influential to me, one stood out in my mind as she shaped me into the educator that I am today. 

    When I entered my junior year of high school, I was put in a college prep level pre-calculus class because I had been on an IEP in the past and my previous teacher refused to put me in honors, despite the 105%  final average I had in her class. On the first day of class, we reviewed our summer math packets together to see if we got the correct answers. As we went through it, I had the majority of the questions correct, other than a few mistakes here and there. At the end of the class, the teacher asked me why I was not in an honors class. I told her that I very much wanted to be but I was not able to for various reasons that I did not quite understand at the time. This teacher then went up to bat for me and tried to get me switched because she saw my potential. The guidance department would not let it happen so she then pushed me all year long, giving me more work and pushed me to think harder about the problems at hand and why they worked. By the end of the year, she wanted to get me switched into honors calculus for the next year, but the guidance department vetoed it again because they did not believe I would know all the material needed, without even observing my potential and talent. This teacher then had me again for college prep calculus and she did not let down on her promise of pushing me further as well as giving me opportunities to help teach my friends in the class who were struggling. Not to mention, this was the only teacher within my entire educational journey that ever stood up for me when she noticed other students bullying me. She made a point to make sure that I knew I was valued as a person and that my thoughts and feeling were valid and important. 

    This teacher was a leader in many ways. She was a leader in the classroom by making it feel like a safe environment to make mistakes. She also saw every student for who they were and individualized instruction for each one of us. She pushed those who needed a challenge and also met students where they were at if they were behind in skills. She lifted everyone in the class up and made everyone feel smart and worthy. She was also a leader in innovating education by using different technology to enhance our learning as well as created flexible ways for us to show our work, by either going to the board or writing on the desks with expo markers. She fought for change by trying to have me move up to an honors class when the school was still very much into tracking students. She pushed for me to do my best, both inside and out of the classroom, and helped me on my journey to becoming an mathematics teacher. She let me shadow her on college breaks and we kept in contact here and there. Even though I haven’t spoken to her in years, I still think about her every time I walk in to my classroom. She is the reason I wanted to become an educator, because I wanted every student to experience having a teacher like her because she transformed my life in many ways. I hope that one day I may leave the same impression on one of my students in the same way she left an impression on me and that I will be the leader that someone admires one day.