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Seeds of Change

One corps member remembers the Teach For America teacher who changed her life

By Kosha Tucker (Atlanta '06)

I remember Ms. Griffin well. I was a sophomore at Bunn High School in North Carolina in 1999, and Colleen Griffin was my math teacher. Other than having a teacher who looked young, I didn't think anything of the fact that she was new. The cycle of teachers coming in and out was common at my school. So, when I entered Algebra II, I prepared myself for another successful semester and set about achieving my goal as planned: to graduate as valedictorian. It was that simple.

As a result, I was generally oblivious to almost everything that didn't involve my personal academic success. Sure, some of my classes were large and crowded. I attributed that to high student interest. Sure, all of the honors and advanced placement classes were overwhelmingly taken by white students, while the general and special education classes were disproportionately filled with black students. White students merely cared more about academics than blacks, right? And sure, more white students were applying to college, while black students weren't even advised, reminded, or expected to apply.

I mean, I was a black student making straight A's and headed to college, and so were the five other black students with whom I shared all my classes. If we could do it, there couldn't be anything wrong with our school system-it had to be a personal accountability issue. Students were individually responsible for their progress or lack thereof, right?

It wasn't until I was a junior and serving as a teaching assistant in pre-calculus to Ms. Griffin, a Teach For America corps member, that it dawned on me that I, too, had suffered from low expectations. I remember Ms. Griffin, who also coached me in soccer, telling me one day that I was a "turkey" (that's what she called us when she thought we weren't being smart about a decision) for not aspiring higher. "Here you are at the top of your class, overly involved with extracurriculars and settling on mediocre colleges," she said bluntly. "You're going to end up selling yourself short."

That year, Ms. Griffin urged me to apply to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a boarding school for gifted students. It was Ms. Griffin who gave me the confidence to attend an academic summer camp where I studied knot theory and philosophy. It was Ms. Griffin who urged me to apply to Duke, where I was accepted and went on to earn a degree in public policy studies last May. If it hadn't been for Ms. Griffin, I would not be where I am today.

My experience with Ms. Griffin transformed my desire to go to a good college so I could make a lot of money into a passion for social justice and equality. In the fall, I joined Teach For America as a corps member in Atlanta. I hope to change the injustices I witnessed in high school by using the same tactic Ms. Griffin used: motivating undervalued and underestimated students to realize their mighty potential.

As a black woman from rural North Carolina, I know what it's like to be second-guessed, to have assumptions made about me because of what I look like and where I'm from. I want other kids to know that they don't have to live down to the low expectations. They are worthy and deserving of an excellent education and better opportunities. And that is exactly what my first graders this year at Oglethorpe Elementary will understand!