 So, I was very excited to be a member of the NEA Foundation Board of Directors just because of their emphasis on ensuring that every student receives a quality education and really working with school systems in trying to make that happen. As a public educator for almost 20 years now, I think it's important that we give students an opportunity and to really learn and reach their highest potential and really to help them build their capacity to do whatever it is that they want to do in life. I was interested in teaching. I had a daycare teacher actually who inspired me, Ms. Chandler inspired me at a very young age to love reading. She would read with me, she taught me that love of reading so by the time I was ready to go to kindergarten I knew that I was on my way and I was going to be just like Ms. Chandler. I also went to work with her in the summers when I was a teenager and volunteered at that same daycare with her just really helping to build that love of learning, particularly reading and so I think that's one of the reasons why I became a kindergarten teacher. I also have my grandmother to thank for really instilling that value of an education in me. My grandmother, she was only able to go to school until the eighth grade and so she made it her mission to ensure that her children and that her children's children really knew that the way that they could do anything in this life was through an education and so she would always ask me, did you get your lesson? And for her that meant, were you paying attention in school? Did you get everything that you could get on that day so that you can be successful and you can have every opportunity in this world presented to you? And so I made sure that I got my lesson every single day because of my grandmother. I also think it's important working with the NEA Foundation and really just being a public school educator that we're working to interrupt those patterns of inequities that continue to exist in our schools and in our school systems and when we do that, that's when we'll be able to ensure that we eliminate those opportunity gaps that still persist and that every kid will receive that promise of public education. I've been a teacher for almost 20 years. I taught kindergarten and first grade for 14 years and then I transitioned into working with teachers really helping teachers to think about the instruction that they're providing to really find the ways that we can motivate students to learn that we can engage students in the work and that we can make a difference in the lives of students. I feel like it has been extremely rewarding to be a kindergarten teacher and to be in the classroom and to have that direct impact on student lives and it's rewarding in a different way to be able to impact teachers and then see the difference that they're making in the lives of their students. Did you get your lesson?