to begin I want to start off with me in middle school eighth grade to be exact as I walk into advisory classroom the teacher poaches me and hands me a piece of paper and a pen she tells me that I'm going to write a letter to myself she says you're going to write a letter to yourself I want you to write about what you expect yourself to be in four years I'm gonna send you the letter at the end of high school graduation as I write a new sense of hope begins to fill the page
I set my bar high my goals include getting into college becoming valedictorian meeting the love of my life becoming an international supermodel and most importantly becoming so famous that I could potentially meet and marry Leonardo DiCaprio I thought it was capable of becoming anything I want to become you see no one had ever told me I couldn't in this middle school mostly made up of high-income and white students we had an endless amount of resources textbooks teachers technology you name it we had it here I felt like I could conquer the world flash-forward two months
I'm fourteen years old sitting in on my very first high school assembly the principal has just been introduced to give up motivational speech he starts by asking three questions he asks how many of you have family members who have been in jail almost every student raises their hand how many of you know someone who has died due to gun violence almost every student raises their hand how many of you have family members who went to college very few students raise their hand he ends his motivational speech by saying a third of you will not be
here for graduation some of you will drop out go to jail or die do not be one of those kids in a moment all the feelings I had in middle school began to feel distant would I be able to graduate was there a chance one of my peers would drop out where one of my classmates gonna end up dead this feeling of hopelessness would not end on the very first day of school you see in this high school mostly made up of minority and low-income students we often go classes without textbooks are expected to teach
ourselves and yes we experienced the loss of a classmate due to gun violence I felt in a moment these feelings of hopelessness I was stunned confused angry I wasn't sure with what my life had ahead of me in that short transition from middle school to high school I not only began to see the inequality and resources but I also began to see the inequity in belief that educators had in students the experience of a high school principal telling a group of students that a third of them would not graduate the game became typical one math
school teacher was notorious for creating such a bad climate that students no longer wanted to learn math I asked the I asked the teacher she could clarify a couple of questions she looked at me she said looks like your parents wasted resources on your education for nothing in a moment I didn't know if I could become anything if my very own teacher didn't believe I was capable of succeeding then how could I if it wasn't for my parents belief in me as well as the belief of other educators and mentors I would not be here
where I am today I would not be a freshman at Yale University I began to look beyond myself I want to see if other peers had experienced the same things as I did so I asked I asked one of my classmates why he didn't try harder in school he looked at me I said he didn't try because no one had ever told him he could he didn't believe in himself I had a light bulb moment I saw the connection between how much students believed in themselves and how well they succeeded this experience encouraged me to
be the first student on the New Haven Board of Education as well as a student on the Connecticut State Board of Education on my time on the Connecticut State Board of Education I began to see a trend in underperforming schools that were able to turn around their data just in Connecticut some schools are given extra resources if they are willing to meet certain requirements despite these extra resources only some low-performing schools are able to actually improve their data one school in particular stood out Lincoln Bassett school in New Haven I wondered how the school was
able to turn around its data so quickly so I asked I asked the principal how she was able to meet growth targets for 94% of her students in just two years she looked at me and smiled she said that she focused on creating a school culture in which hired the expectations for both students and educators she said she used the power of words to do this she used the acronym soar feeling safe staying on task being held accountable and being respectful to show educators and students that they could succeed and that they were being held
accountable she championed professional development on class and race issues so that educators could learn how to best empower students and lastly she ended each each morning with the same phrase Lincoln Bassett a school where eagles soar and failure is not an option you see with words she took away failure as an option if there was one thing I learned in my educational experience it was that educators and community members have to believe in student potential in order for them to succeed and with this I call to all educators please be wise about the words he
used you have the power to dramatically impact a person's life use that power with intention I call upon policy members to fund public education and to fund it equally and to create cultural competency courses for teacher certification I call upon students please encourage each other and use words positively in the classroom together you can succeed and lastly I call upon anyone listening please do not make assumptions about someone based based off of their background the power of your words can dramatically shape their life if we do not solve this problem the impact will be an
increased disparity that will hurt American education as a whole because the power of words is the power to change lives thank you [Applause]
