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BRI Teacher Council Member Shares Her Inspiration

AS
by Ally Silva on

<p>When I came into teaching, I wanted to impact students the way my teachers did. I think many of us come into the profession wanting to change the world and impact at least one student. The two teachers who had the greatest impact on my life, outside of my Student Council Advisor, were both history teachers, and they influenced my life in drastically different ways.</p>

<p>The first one, my AP World History teacher, was the first person who showed me that being a history teacher was a passion and that history could be fun and interesting. The second, my AP United States History teacher, showed me teaching was the profession for me because I vowed not to be the same kind of teacher as them — one who did the same activities each and every year.</p>

<p>It took a few years for me to have a student who came back and showed me the effect 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! She later told me that she thought I was crazy.</p>

<p>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. She went to college to study biology, with the plan of being a doctor. But then, one day, she called to tell me that she was running for Student Government Senator, then Vice President, then President.</p>

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

<p>None of the credit belonged to me, but it forever changed my mindset that I did not have any 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>