 As an NEA Foundation board member, I'm really excited to be a part of initiatives and programs that help teachers become global learners, leave their classroom and go to places like Peru and China and South Africa and then bring those lessons right back into the classroom. I'm excited about being part of initiatives that rush food into schools so children can have breakfast so they can learn while having a full tummy. I'm excited to be part of an organization that helps teachers connect hopes and dreams to the financial support and resources that they need to make the initiatives they dream of come to life in their classroom. These are the kinds of things that as an educator I am extraordinarily excited about. I've been an educator for 30 years and every single day I work with students and I can see that each child has a spark, each child has a gift and if we can connect those talents and gifts to opportunities and resources we can have a transformed democracy. So that's what drives me and that's why I'm excited to be part of the NEA Foundation board. In my practice I keep in my mind a gallery of students who have taught me important life lessons. These students have informed my journey as an educator because they've reminded me of key aspects that I need to keep front and center. One such student had run away from home no one knew where he was he had gone far away we could have found him dead somewhere we didn't know but sure enough he returned he returned to school and everyone was scurrying around wondering what to do with the student would he walk for graduation would he would he complete the work that he missed but when I saw the student I opened up my arms and he came into my arms and we said nothing and he walked away 15 years later he wrote to me and told me that that was the hug he needed most in his life and he was so grateful that I understood that no words were necessary that it was the relationship that we had as human beings and my support for him a questioning young man who was wondering who he was and where he was going he just needed to be affirmed for a split second and that that realization put this young man in my gallery of students who teach me life lessons and the lesson was relationships matter they're at the core of what we do as educators and we can never forget that. I have those students in my all the time you know the students who taught me to push harder you know to to be brave enough to start a gay straight alliance in my school when when it wasn't politically comfortable to do so when it wasn't my issue my students have told me that it's they're right and they need support and they need help and those gallery those students who make up my gallery of students are my teachers