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BRI Teacher Council Member Discusses Impact On Students

AS
by Ally Silva on

<p>When I came into teaching, I wanted to impact students in the way my teachers impacted me. I think many of us come into the profession wanting to change the world and affect at least one student.</p>

<p>The two teachers that had the greatest impact on my life, outside of my Student Council Advisor, were both history teachers and affected my life in drastically different ways. The first, my AP World History teacher, was the first person who showed me that being a history teacher was a passion and history could be fun and interesting. The second, my AP U.S. History teacher, showed me teaching was the profession for me because I vowed not to be a teacher like them – someone who did the same activities each and every year.</p>

<p>It took me a few years to have a student who came back and showed me the impact I had on their life. I met her when she was a sophomore, and I was starting at a new school as a Student Council advisor. I told her she had the “spark” and that she would be a Student Council kid. She laughed. Honestly, she laughed!</p>

<p>She later told me she thought I was crazy. She went on to be a student in my dual-credit U.S. History class and fell in love with a subject she previously had no interest in. The joke was on her, though, because she became Student Council President.</p>

<p>She went on to college to study biology, with the plan of becoming a doctor. But then, one day, she called to tell me she was running for student government senator, then vice president, and then president. I was stunned.</p>

<p>She found her love of civics through my class and my council. The next important phone call I got was during a school day at my new school, where she told me she was accepted to law school, and I was the reason that happened.</p>

<p>None of the credit belonged to me, but it changed my mindset that I did not have an impact on students. It profoundly changed my life and forever affected me as a teacher.</p>

<p><em>Kelley Akins teaches history and AP African-American Studies at Northwest Early College High School in El Paso, TX. She is also a member of the Bill of Rights Institute National Teacher Council.</em></p>