Speak Up while you can.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”- Benjamin Franklin The concept of the teacher and the student goes as far back as time itself. There who someone who has learned something, someone who tries to teach and someone who is being taught. That being said, regardless of how much you think you know, there is always much more to learn. Throughout my time at Venetia Valley School, I have learned a great deal from not only the teachers there, but from the students as well. I went in thinking that I would be the one doing mot of the teaching, I started out by helping in the classroom and giving talks to students about the importance of wanting to stay in school and pursue higher education. In my mind i was the one who would be making a difference to the students of Venetia Valley. Although only one student was vocal about his appreciation for my talks, I would hope that I was able to reach as many students as possible. Never did I think that I would be the one to learn something from one of my students. After one of my more recent talks about how I struggled in school and had to work hard in order to get into college, a little girl told me a story about her and her family. In order to keep her identity anonymous as she did tell me this was a very personal story I will refer to her as Kate.

Kate told me about who growing up her father was not always around a lot because of the fact that he was an undocumented American and had to work multiple manual labor jobs in order to hope provide for her and her older sister. She explained to me how hard her father worked and how exhausted he would be when he came home from his jobs. She told me that her fathers hard work ethic is what helped inspire her to want to become a scientist. Although only in middle school, Kate thrives off of the hard work her father has put in to create a stable environment for her and her family. She eve told me that a few summers ago, her father earned his citizenship as a United States citizen. The point being in this story is that no matter how hard you think you had it, there is someone else who had it much harder, yet who is still working extremely hard in order to create a bright future for themselves and the ones they care about. Little did I know, that on that day, Kate would be the one teaching me about the qualities of hard work and inspiration. She told me about how she watches the news and sees what happens to the undocumented Americans that are currently getting deported under the Trump Administration. I asked her if she ever gets scared that someone she know may get deported. She responded by telling me “I would never want to see anyone I know get deported, but I cant go to school everyday scared and let that take away from my learning experience, that would be letting the people who are deporting us win.” It took me a while to understand the point of what she said, for her words are wiser beyond her years. She taught me that no matter what obstacles come my way that way have to keep moving forward, living in fear means that you are not really living at all. Never did I think that a middle school student would be the one teaching me so much

After watching the very powerful and informative Clint Smith video, I was able to decipher a lot about the actions or lack there of that have been taken in our society. Right from the start, Smith discusses a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that said, we don’t remember our enemies who were loud, but our friends who were silent. I thought that was extremely powerful, not only the quote but also his own personal story. He spoke volumes about his own life and how he was guilty of being silent and how he was busy telling people what they wanted to hear rather than what they needed to hear. It reminds me to continue to do what I do, which is always speak my mind, to remember that there will be people who will not like what you have to say, but in the end it is what they needed to hear. My goal is to be an inspiration to those around me and to learn from not only my mistakes, but the mistakes of others.

Throughout this course I have gained a plethora of knowledge that I did not have before. I did not realize how powerful a societal impact could be on the lives of the “other”. I did not know that there were so many people who were being victimized in todays modern world. People still fighting for equal rights because they are unhappy where they currently stand. People who are willing to part take in power protests and marches because in some way it displays how they feel about something. There are still a lot of things wrong in our world today and without this course I would have never known that.