Michie Burbano

My father says it takes a bad student to make a good teacher. His thinking behind that statement is those who succeeded in school will just perpetuate the same system that they succeeded in while those who struggled will bring compassion and innovation to help others succeed. He grew up in a post WWII rural Pennsylvania town with English as his second language. As the only Japanese American family in town, they stuck out like a sore thumb. But all four of his siblings also went into education. They worked tirelessly on what I now know is equity, it was steeped in their own experience of how hard it was to succeed in a system built for a cultural different from their own. I want to honor my father and his generation by asking those students who wished they had just one teacher when they were young who looked like them, could comfort them in their own language when they were down, or shared a bit in their traditions to consider being that teacher for the next generation. Therefore I look to the students who participate in the ASHE, Umoja, RASA, Puente, H.O.P.E. or the indigenous Peoples Club as the starting point for such future teachers.