Ms. Lopez

I am a big fan of Humans of New York.  If you don't follow this page on instagram, you should!  Recently a younger kid was featured and talked about how his school principal was the person who influenced him most in his life.  This kid lives in one of the highest crime areas in New York. 

A few days later, HONY featured a photo of the principal, Ms. Lopez, a photo of some of the students, and a photo from the teacher meeting.   As I was reading through the captions under the pictures I was truly amazed at how much this woman cared about her students and how much she wanted to see them succeed.  As inspirational as it was, it was also sad.  My feelings were very similar to my feelings after I read/saw the Freedom Writers Diary - why aren't all educators like this?

It's sad that not every teacher cares so much about their students and making a difference in the lives of the little people with whom they spend most of their day.   I really thought back to my school experience and I can literally count on one hand the amount of teachers I felt actually cared and went above and beyond for their students. 

My 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Knode

My 8th grade math teacher, Ms. Sparks (at the time I thought she was a bitch but that year was the first year I ever did really well in math)

My 6th grade Social Studies teacher, Mr. Bennett

My 10th Grade English teacher, Mr. Skelton

My College Sociology Professor, Mrs. Brewer

There may be one or two more in there that I just can't think of off the top of my head, but these are the ones that I really remember.   My school was not a school filled with kids living in poverty with drug addicted parents and gangs, this was a school with mostly middle class and above students.  So, yeah there will be difficult days but there is no reason why I should only have memory of 5 teachers who I felt really cared.  And I think kids living in poverty need the caring teachers because in my experience, a lot of the times their parents don't care.

Anyway, my point is that this lady is an inspiration, and what all educators should aspire to - in my humble opinion.   A lot of the children who live in that area have never been out of the city and Ms. Lopez wants to do an annual trip with the incoming 6th grade students to get them out of New York and show them that there is more out there than their neighborhood.  Her choice is to take them up to Boston to visit Harvard University.   HONY started a fund to try to help raise money for this trip and at the time I'm writing this, has raised over $400,000!  That is enough to take a trip for then next 6 years!

 (Click here if you would like to donate)

Also, a lot of people have been sending flowers and cards to Ms. Lopez and her staff thanking them for being such an inspiration to their students.  Between this and the amount of money raised, my faith in the human race has been restored a bit.  It's amazing to see that so many people throughout the US and the world want to see these kids succeed and get out of a life of poverty and crime. 

There really isn't much of a point to this post except to say that I'm glad to see that there are so many amazing people out there and that there are educators who truly try their absolute hardest to see their students succeed.