Mr. Rich Teacher

Teacher of the Year Speech:
San Diego Unified School District has been good to me. I’ve enjoyed my years working in the Educational Technology Department, the  BTSA program, and the Intern Program. But it wasn’t until 2018, that  I finally found my home in education, back in the classroom with the children at Baker Elementary. Of all the district roles I’ve served, teaching at Baker has been the most satisfying.

The students and staff at Baker are the most loving and considerate people I’ve known. The students with their positivity and energy make going to work every day a pleasure. The teachers are smart, compassionate, and dedicated. Observing them in action has been an education for me. The classified staff work with graceful professionalism. And the principal, Dr. Gallagher has given me the confidence to serve the students to the best of my abilities.

My childhood greatly influenced my decision to become a teacher and work in less affluent schools. I grew up in a highly impoverished neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, during the turbulent ’70s.  I routinely saw prostitutes on my neighborhood street corner and alcoholics and addicts sleeping on the sidewalks. We had a joke in our neighborhood that we didn’t have any gangs because nobody wanted to run the neighborhood.  

I had two siblings born to my parents, five adopted siblings, and numerous foster brothers and sisters. The generosity of my parents taught me that I was going to follow a life of service to others. Many of my siblings came from abusive parents. One foster brother watched as his father shot and killed his mother, others came from alcoholic parents.  My most influential role model, my older brother, was murdered when I was only 12.  But we were a family. Definitely not the Brady Bunch, but a family nonetheless. 

I learned from the “down-home” approach of my father’s service in the neighborhood as a preacher and community leader. He started successful internship programs for high school dropouts and raised large sums of money, through grant writing, for the inner-city citizens. He started a summer camp in the suburbs for inner-city youth. Some of my happiest times were spent there. It wasn’t until much later I learned the summer camp was consistently vandalized and intimidated by racist local citizens who spray-painted racist messages all over the buildings and twice tried to burn the camp down.

I learned compassion from my mother, a home economics teacher, and later principal, in a low-income, inner-city junior high. I also learned my reading and study habits through her guidance and example.

So you see, I’ve stood on the shoulders of great servants. I truly appreciate and am humbled by this award, but anything that I am able to accomplish is just a sliver of the greatness I’ve seen. My family and colleagues are the real teachers of the year!