Guest Blogger Meghana Ravikumar
It was my first day of teaching at Breakthrough Silicon Valley. I had so many visions of what this experience would be like and I couldn’t wait to get started. Little did I know that I was in for one of the biggest challenges of my life!
As I stood in front of my first class of 11, all I could see was complete boredom and disinterest in my students’ faces, who looked as if they would rather be anywhere else. As I posed simple prompting questions, the classroom remained utterly silent, leaving me standing nervously at the front, unsure of what to do. No one seemed interested in the activities I had planned at all, or my efforts to get them to speak, and my heart plummeted.
Given that I had always been that student who was very excited to participate it class, the students’ deathly silence was incredibly disheartening. I grew resigned to the fact that this was how it would be. However, as time passed, I realized that maybe there were other reasons.
One of my students, Leah, was an incredibly bubbly and popular girl. Even though her homework reflected great effort, she was withdrawn and quiet in class. Eventually, I realized that this was because she didn’t think she was good enough. Whenever I called on her, she would make comments such as “Why don’t you call on Jill instead? She always knows the answer. I’m not smart”. Given the quality of her homework and the thoughtfulness of her opinions the rare times she did speak up, the fact that she thought this way completely shocked me. How could a girl who was so vibrant and loud outside of class be the same as the girl who made these comments? It was unbelievable. I wanted so badly for Leah to see in her what I did, so I decided to show her. On a piece of paper, I wrote “Leah you are…” and surrounded it with character traits that I felt described her and explained why (this was especially relevant as we had just done a lesson on character traits!). I also wrote a letter to her about how unhelpful beliefs about my intelligence during childhood had limited my ability to fulfill my potential. I ended by telling her that everyone has something share and teach others. I gave this to her on last day of class, and she hastily stuffed it into her backpack.
The next day, Leah caught me in the bathroom and told me that she had bawled while reading it and that no one had never done something so nice for her. We cried together afterwards, and she kept saying thank you to me, so happy that someone believed in her. She promised me that she would speak up in class in high school. I felt so happy that I had helped her begin to recognize her potential.
I realized that there is so much more to students than the side they reveal to others. I had previously assumed that students didn’t speak in class because they didn’t care, but Leah’s story completely contradicted all of my assumptions.
I have always been interested in learning about people and understanding how people think. Breakthrough helped me realize that I love working with young people and being a mentor, supporter, and advocate to them. So many kids out there need someone to look up to and someone there to say “I see you. I believe in you. And I care about how you do.” I want to be that person for kids in need.
This is a picture of me with my crew leader (wearing the suit in the back) and my crew. Each teacher was assigned a partner and together were called “crew leaders”. Each pair of crew leaders was assigned 10-11 kids to be in charge of- you eat lunch and brunch with them, play games with them, and more. They become your family!
An unforgettable part of Breakthrough is the close relationships you develop with students. Weeks after Breakthrough ended, my colleague (another teacher) Ashley and I attended our student Derek’s Vietnamese singing performance!