It was my junior year of high school when I met Jennifer Towles. I was taking US History and it was a dual credit class. It was hard and challenging as it was a college class, and I was taking it as a junior. I feel that I wouldn't have made it in that class or my junior year in general if it wasn't for Mrs. Towles. She pushed me like no other teacher had and she showed me what it really meant to be an educator. I've always wanted to be a teacher, I picked it when I was in the third grade and I just stuck with it. When I got to high school I started to doubt myself a lot, which is very normal because it's high school but it was getting to be too much. I didn't really know if I wanted to continue my plans of becoming a teacher. I was seeing a lot of my teachers start to give up and not really care as much about what they were doing. It took a toll on me, I started to think I couldn't do it and that I would end up not caring just like them. I didn't want to be the teacher who didn't enjoy her job so I decided that I would go into the medical field. My mom is a nurse and it's always grabbed my attention so sophomore year I switched up all my endorsement classes and started taking medical classes. It was fun and interesting to learn about, but I never was as happy or entertained as I was when I was taking education-based classes. I ended up just ignoring my feelings and kept going with the medical endorsement. Junior year rolled around and everyone had to take US History so here I was taking it. I love history, I always have, especially US history. I never really thought about teaching it but it was a course I very much enjoyed. The first week was a bit rough as it was harder than I thought it would be. It was a lot of writing which I didn't expect. I started struggling pretty badly and my grades reflected this. None of my teachers before had really cared when I was struggling with a grade and never came to me and asked why I was struggling. Mrs. Towles on the other hand was not like these teachers, she cared with all her heart. She came to me and she asked what I needed help with and if it was purely my academics or something more. This was the first time I really opened up to a teacher and felt comfortable enough to tell her anything. I told her about my career dilemma, my other classes, my friends, and my family, I told her everything and anytime I needed to talk she would listen. I started going to her room a lot more in my free time and she would help me with my work or just listen to me talk. I started to see that other students were doing the same and it really showed me that a lot of students trusted her as one of the adults in their lives. She was there for so many of us and it helped so many of us get through our hardest year of high school. Mrs. Towles taught me not only the curriculum in her class but how to be a better person and student. She was a true educator and taught her students everything we needed to know. At the end of my senior year, I graduated in the top 2% of my class and we had a ceremony for this. At this ceremony, we choose a teacher and write them a letter. I picked Mrs. Towles and in my letter, I explained how she is the reason that I decided to be a teacher again because I knew I could be just like her and make students feel safe and comfortable. I am now on my way to transfer to Texas Tech as a history major and an education minor so that I can become a high school history teacher just like Mrs. Towles.

I believe I am a woman of excellence because I have been working my whole life. As a woman, we are essentially forced to work harder to get what we want and deserve. I've had to do so much more than a man to get to where I am, whether it's school or work or just everyday life. I do believe we are making a difference in the gender norms but they're still there in all aspects and we still have a lot of fighting to do. While I am a woman I am also African American and Mexican. This makes things harder too as I am not a white male or female. I don't get the same opportunities offered to me as they do. I am also mixed so I'm split with my races, sometimes I'm too black to do things or I'm too Mexican. It's a struggle that I feel a lot of us face in the world today but we push through it. I'm a woman of excellence because I'm still here working to get the things I know I deserve. I am currently majoring in History with the hopes of becoming a high school history teacher. I believe my lived experiences have heavily contributed to who I am and the career I have chosen for myself. I grew up in the lower-income communities and schools. I've had plenty of teachers who have given up on me and other students. Many of my family members and friends didn't graduate high school and went on to some darker paths. I believe this has pushed me harder because I didn't want to be like them but I also wanted to help the people who were turning out like them. I want to be a teacher so that I can help the students who are being given up on and who just need someone to believe in them. I've volunteered at a lot of local places here in Amarillo including Snack Pak 4 Kids, The Food Bank, Colorful Closets, and many more. I've got the opportunity to do this through AmeriCorps where I volunteer at an elementary school every day. Volunteering at these places has opened my eyes and has shown me that people have it worse than I had it. There are so many people struggling to be able to live and it's a hard truth that we all have to face. I've also learned that there are so many ways that we can help them and that we are helping them. There are so many organizations that are truly trying to get these people on their feet. It's hard to see the number of families that are struggling to make it but it's something that we need to see. It's pushed me even more to want to help and to be successful so that I can help. There's so much to learn from volunteering and it's something that I think everyone should do at least once just to show how much you can help. I believe my greatest accomplishment at the moment is graduating number eight in my class. I graduated from high school last year in 2023 and I worked so hard to get that spot. To some people, it's a great number and to some, it's not and they think I could have done better, but to me it's everything. I worked so hard from elementary school to high school to get that spot and I'm very proud of it. It got me automatic acceptance to many of the schools I applied for and got me some financial aid. I didn't even care about all of that though, what I cared about was my family members seeing me do it. As I said before many of my family members didn't graduate high school so for me to do it and be in the top 2% meant a lot to my family. I work hard for them and to show them that we can all do it. I want them to see that I'm working for everyone like us and trying to be successful so that I can help them.

I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in the third grade. I grew up with so many amazing teachers in my life. They really showed me what it means to be a great teacher. I believe that teaching is not just about teaching your students the curriculum, it's about teaching them to be better people and to really believe in themselves. It takes a lot mentally to be a teacher and I strongly believe that it's one of the hardest jobs to do. You have to have the confidence to stand up in front of a classroom and talk about everything and anything. Children no matter what age are full of surprises and as a teacher you have to be ready for every single one. I want to be a teacher that my students trust. A child isn't going to listen to you if they don't trust you. Building relationships with your students is the first step in being a good teacher. I want to inspire my kids and teach them the way my teachers did. I want to show them that they can do anything they put their minds to and if they work hard enough they'll succeed. We always say that children are our future and it's true so we need to treat them like that. I want my students to believe in themselves and I want them to ask challenging and difficult questions. They need to know how to operate in this world and I want to be able to show them that. I plan to inspire my students to be themselves and to trust in themselves. I want them to know who they are and what they're doing to figure that out. It takes a lot for a student to become inspired but I'm going to put in the work and I'm going to make sure every single one of my students knows what it means to be themselves. They need to have their own opinions and thoughts and I'll make my classroom a safe place for them so that they can express who they are.

My name is Mia Briseno I am currently enrolled at Amarillo College and will transfer to Texas Tech University in Fall of 2024. I am majoring in History and my minor is Education as I'm planning to become a High School History teacher. I have two jobs right now and I'm also apart of a local dance team here in Amarillo. I really believe that I can make a positive impact on the world through my career. I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in the third grade because I had amazing teachers and I wanted to be just like them. I believe that teachers have the easiest opportunity to impact peoples lives because they are teaching the next generation. Teacher shave the ability to shape their students into the person they know they can be and really be able t use their potential. Growing up I had amazing teachers but not all of them were that great. As a student you can tell when a teacher just doesn't want to be there and doesn't care and it's the worst feeling. I've gone through a lot of classes where the teacher just didn't care and we as students struggled so much because they didn't care to teach us. I personally think that a bad teacher can have a bigger impact on a child than a good teacher. Teachers can either bring you down or being you up and that really affects a kid's mindset. Teachers are supposed to believe in you and push you to get better so when a teacher doesn't do that it hurts a kid's self-esteem no matter how old they are. I never want to be a teacher that doesn't care, I want to be the teacher that students trust and enjoy going to see. In order to make a positive impact on the world I need to be a good teacher. I'm going to push my students and give them some to trust and count on. Being a teacher is not just teaching kids the curriculum, it's teaching them how to themselves and how to live in this world. I want them to be able to talk to me about anything and ask for help when they need it. I'm going to be there for my students, and I'm going to push them to do their very best. I can't wait to get into a classroom and handle things on my own and build relationships with my students. I want them to leave my room and know that they can do whatever they put their minds to and contribute to their community.

One major issue that I see affecting our community is the amount of students that don't think they're good enough to get a higher education. I'm currently working as an Extended School Day tutor at Tradewind Elementary in Amarillo Texas. I work with 1st and 2nd graders and even at their young age I can see that their confidence in their knowledge is very low. They struggle with a lot of things that they should have done and learned by now and I see this in all the grade levels. I also went to Caprock High School which is one of the low demographic schools so I've seen many of my peers drop out and give up. It is truly an issue that I feel is overlooked and no one seems to try to help the kids that are struggling. We're essentially putting ourselves in a constant loop of poverty and low education. I want to be able to help these students and young adults, I want them to see that they have so much more potential than they think they do. I want to be an educator and I feel that I'll be able to use this as a platform to help students that are going through these types of issues. As I've been volunteering around campuses these past 3 years I've noticed that a lot of the teachers don't put in effort to help these types of students. I don't blame the teachers because I get it, it's hard being an educator but I feel that this is part of the job. You have to be willing to help your students and push them to do better. It's a hard job but I fully believe that I can do it. I plan to work at a low income high school because I want to be able to solve the issue and the root. The students at low income schools are more likely to drop out and not desire a higher education. I want to be the teacher to connect with them and make them want to pursue a higher education. You have to have a certain personality and drive in order to connect with kids and for them to actually listen to you. It's a tough issue to try to fix or just help but I know if we start now we can find a solution. The problem that is fueling this issue is the lack of confidence and support that these kids are getting. They're children and even young adults and their minds are so easy to mess up. They need trustworthy adults to help guide them and tell them that they can do it. It's really all about believing in each other and supporting everyone.