Teach For America Teachers
Thank You For Believing in Us!
My name is Kettysha Collymore. I’m 17. I live in Miami, Florida, but I was born in Grenada, West Indies. I moved here nine years ago with my family for a better life. I’m not 100% sure that we got that better life yet, but I am going to make sure that by the time I graduate, I have access to the opportunities I deserve. And yes, I will graduate. I will go to college, and I will make a life for myself.
Right now I’m a student at Miami Central Senior High. Being a student at Miami Central is challenging. There are so many kids here who are not living up to their full potential - who have reached 11th grade not really being able to read. It’s as if they were passed on and passed on so that teachers wouldn’t have to deal with them. I look around me and think….[I want better than this.] It’s hard not to get dragged down by the negative energy. Last year, only 11% of the students at my school passed the reading FCAT. 11%. There are almost 1600 kids at my school, and I think to myself….that’s 1400 of my friends, in MY community, who can’t read on grade level. And if you can’t read…what kind of future can you access? You can’t read a job application. You can’t write a resume that will open doors for you. I look at some students and ask myself…are 1400 of my friends a couple years away from ending up on the streets?
It can be really hard to try to be successful. At a school where failing is NORMAL, your friends can be your worst enemies. People find it's hard to be successful. I’ll look around me and think that people are wondering whether they are in school for nothing because they find it's hard to do the work. But my mother moved here so that I could have a better life and I am going to achieve, to go to college, and to become a lawyer or a law enforcement official. I believe in myself and I believe in my future.
I look around this room, at the 100 teachers from Teach For America here tonight. I want to share a thought with you. If you can motivate a student….you will open up the WORLD to them. Tell them you believe in them and they will do anything. Challenge them and they will do anything to prove myself. Don’t look at their situation and think that they can’t live up to high expectations. I know that is what you all are thinking about because I have two teachers from Teach For America. Ms. Williams for Math, and Ms. Ramaduri for Reading. And I have the utmost respect for them because they believed that all their students could achieve when no one else believed in us. They stood there, day after day, pushing us despite our very sour attitude. It took a few weeks for us to understand that this year was going to be different…that you were not going to back down, and that you really were sincere. Thank you so much for what you’ve done. When I become a lawyer, you will get a phone call from me, because you have been leaders who made a change in my life.
The thing is…poverty has nothing to do with how intelligent a person is. People look at the students at my school and judge them before they even open their mouths. But they’re wrong. Poor doesn’t mean dumb.
Every child at my school can achieve and I know you are all here tonight because you believe that.
Thank you for believing in us, for helping us access our best possible future, and for working to make sure that every child in my community is able to attain an excellent education.
Thank you and Good Night.
