 The best part about being a teacher is the people, the students. I never have a boring day at work. Usually it doesn't feel like work. It's just fun and I get to learn right along with the students. My name is Fariel Pearson. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The Secret Kindness Agents project grew out of the Sandy Hook tragedy because I had a daughter at the same age as the students who were murdered there and I had high school students who I knew had giant hearts and wanted to do good in the world and it was our way of taking power back. So we went around as anonymous agents of kindness with agent names, trying to make our school a better place and trying to reduce harm and violence where we were. What if we do random acts of kindness if you want to? I'll have this envelope and you can draw something, you know, and I'll give you a reward if you go do that. And then they said it's not really kindness if we expect a reward from you. It has to come from the heart and that blew me away. They created it. It wasn't me. It was just me grasping desperately and straws in them taking it and running with it. And that's how the Secret Kindness Agents started and I try to carry that into every interaction I have with my students, with my children, with my friends, with my family. And so when I see a student on campus I make sure that they know that I am glad to see them. When I see a colleague on campus I make sure they know that I am so happy that they are there and in my life. My professors at Gustavus really instilled a sense of social justice in me as a teacher. That teaching is not just reading, writing, arithmetic. It's preparing our students to be good citizens of the world and gave me different ways to think about things and to give me permission to have a different perspective and that different perspectives are respected and are valid. And that really helps me live a life of purpose because my purpose is to make things good and to right wrongs and to fix things that are broken if I can. I'm Feriel Pearson and I'm a Gusty. Make your life count.