I want to build a school that feels like it was made for everyone in it. Not a building. Not a program. A culture. An environment where a kid who learns differently does not spend years believing she is the problem. Where a neurodivergent student does not have to mask who she is just to survive the school day. Where teachers are equipped, not just with content knowledge, but with the tools to truly meet every learner in the room. I know this school is possible because I have been building pieces of it for seven years. I am an English teacher with a Master's degree in Education, currently pursuing a Doctorate in Educational Leadership. I was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age and spent much of my childhood in classrooms that were not designed for my brain. School was something I endured. It was not until I learned to understand myself, and found educators who were willing to meet me where I was, that I realized what school could feel like when it actually worked. That realization became my mission. I became a teacher so that my students would not have to wait as long as I did. In my classroom, I build belonging every day. I use differentiated instruction, strength-based feedback, and relationship-first teaching to create space for students who have been told they are behind to discover what they are actually capable of. I have watched students who arrived disengaged and defeated find their voice, their confidence, and their love of learning. That does not happen by accident. It is built intentionally, one interaction at a time. My EdD is the next phase of that construction. Through my doctoral research, I plan to study how schools can systematically build inclusive environments for neurodivergent learners, moving beyond individual classrooms and into the structures, policies, and training that shape entire school cultures. I want to understand what it actually takes to build a school where every student feels present, capable, and seen, and then help other educators build that too. The impact of this work extends far beyond my own classroom. When students feel like they belong in school, they stay. They engage. They grow into adults who believe they have something to contribute. And when teachers are trained to build truly inclusive environments, that ripple effect reaches every student they will ever teach. I am not just pursuing a degree. I am building a blueprint. And with the support of the Bulkthreads.com Let's Aim Higher Scholarship, I can keep building.

The first time I had a panic attack, I did not have language for it. I only knew that in that moment, I was certain I was going to die. What I did not know was that I would spend the next 21 years feeling that way without ever knowing why. The tightness in my chest, the racing heart, the sleepless nights spent ruminating on things I could not control. I carried all of it without a name for any of it. I used to sleep with every light on in my room. Not because I was afraid of the dark, but because I was afraid of my thoughts. Darkness gave them too much space. I avoided situations that made me uncomfortable. I stopped taking risks. I pulled back from things I wanted because I could not predict when my body or my mind would turn against me. For a long time I assumed something was simply broken in me, a conclusion that felt familiar. I had spent much of my childhood feeling like a problem my schools and systems could not quite solve. Then a coworker mentioned something called anxiety. She described it casually, the way people do when they have always had language for their experience. And I sat there quietly, recognizing every single word. That moment changed my life. Not because the panic attacks stopped, but because I finally had language to articulate what I was experiencing. And language, I know as an English teacher, is everything. You cannot begin to address something you cannot name. You cannot ask for help with something that has no words. You cannot feel less alone in an experience you believe is yours alone. I spent 21 years suffering in silence not because I was weak, but because no one had ever given me the vocabulary to understand what was happening in my own body and mind. That is a failure of our mental health culture, and it is one I think about constantly as an educator. In my classroom, I advocate for mental health awareness by creating space for students to name what they are feeling. I normalize conversations about anxiety, stress, and overwhelm. I build in breathing room, literal and figurative, because I know what it costs a student to sit in a classroom while their nervous system is in crisis. I have been that student. I also advocate by modeling honesty. When it is appropriate, I share with students that I have navigated anxiety myself, that struggle does not disqualify them, and that asking for help is a form of courage, not weakness. For students who have never seen an adult be honest about mental health, that visibility matters more than any lesson plan. Mental health is important to me because silence almost swallowed 21 years of my life. I became a teacher so that my students would never have to wait that long to find their words.

I do not teach special education. But I have a firm belief that every teacher is a special education teacher, and I plan to research exactly that in my Doctorate in Educational Leadership. I came to this belief the same way I came to most things that matter to me: through lived experience. Adopted from Russia at a young age and diagnosed with a learning disability in childhood, I spent years inside a school system that did not know what to do with me. I was not a special education student on paper. But I needed what every special education teacher is trained to offer: patience, creativity, flexibility, and an unshakeable belief that the student in front of them is capable. I eventually found my way. And then I became a teacher so I could help others find theirs. Professor Harold Bloom wrote that the purpose of teaching is to bring a student to a sense of their own presence. I have sat with that line for a long time. To me, it means this: before a student can learn anything, they must first know that they exist in the room. That they are seen. That their mind, however it works, belongs here. For neurodivergent students and students with special needs, this is not a soft idea. It is the entire foundation. A student who does not feel present cannot access learning. A student who feels invisible will eventually stop trying to be seen. My mission as an educator is to make presence possible. In my English classroom in East Side San Jose, that looks like differentiated instruction, flexible pacing, multiple ways to demonstrate understanding, and a relentless refusal to equate compliance with intelligence. It looks like learning every student's name on the first day and meaning it. It looks like noticing when someone goes quiet and asking why. Seven years in the classroom have taught me that the students who need the most from us are rarely the ones who ask loudly. They are the ones sitting in the back, having learned already that school was not built for them. My job is to rebuild it, one lesson at a time, until they believe otherwise. That is why I am pursuing an EdD with a research focus on special education and neurodivergent learners. I want to understand, at a systemic level, how we train all teachers to see themselves as special education teachers, because the student who needs differentiated support does not only sit in a designated classroom. They sit in every classroom. They sit in mine. Once upon a time, in a kingdom where every child was handed the same map and told to follow it exactly, there lived a teacher named Lindsay who had once been a child who could not read the map at all. She remembered what it felt like to hold that map upside down while everyone else moved forward. She remembered the shame of it. And so when she was given her own classroom, she did something radical: she threw out the single map and drew a different one for every child. Some students needed a map with pictures. Some needed one with fewer words. Some needed someone to walk beside them and read it aloud. Some needed to draw their own. The kingdom was skeptical. Maps had always looked the same, they said. But Lindsay's students began to arrive at places no one expected them to reach. They began to raise their hands. They began to stay after class, not because they were in trouble, but because they did not want to leave. And one by one, each child came to know something they had not known before: that they belonged in the story. That they were not a problem to be solved, but a voice waiting to be heard. Lindsay did not slay a dragon. She did something harder. She changed what the classroom believed was possible. And in doing so, she helped every child find their own sense of presence, exactly as Professor Bloom always hoped a teacher would.

I was eight years old when I walked into the bathroom and found my dad covered in marker lines. My first thought was confusion. My mom got upset when I drew on myself, so why was dad covered in drawings? It took a moment before I understood: those lines were not from a marker. They were radiation targets. My dad had cancer. That image has never left me. It was the moment my childhood shifted, and cancer became a permanent presence in my family's story. My dad is a two-time cancer survivor. Watching him fight not once but twice taught me early that resilience is not a personality trait. It is a choice made over and over again, often in quiet, exhausting moments that no one else sees. He made that choice. Our family made it with him. But cancer did not stop there. My mother's sister was also diagnosed, and she did not survive. What followed was years of watching my mother carry her grief while trying to hold our family together. Survivors guilt is not a clinical term when you are living inside it. It is heavy and complicated and it changes the people you love. I grew up alongside that weight, learning how loss echoes long after the diagnosis. Rather than let that grief sit still, I did something with it. I founded and led my own Relay for Life team to honor my aunt and celebrate my dad. That experience taught me that community is one of the most powerful responses to pain. Bringing people together around a shared purpose, turning grief into action, and creating space for others to feel less alone — those lessons have shaped who I am as an educator and as a leader. Most recently, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and spent three years fighting. Our family rallied together the way families do when they have practiced this before. This past year, he completed CAR-T cell therapy and is now in remission. That news felt like a collective exhale for all of us. What cancer has taught me is this: hardship does not have to hollow you out. It can clarify what matters. It taught me to advocate fiercely for the people I love, to build communities that hold each other up, and to never take for granted the people sitting across from me. Those lessons show up every single day in my classroom, where I teach students who are carrying their own invisible burdens and need someone to see them anyway. I am pursuing a Doctorate in Educational Leadership because I believe education, like medicine, should meet people where they are. This scholarship would support that mission and honor the members of my family who have fought so hard to still be here.

I did not grow up loving school. As a child adopted from Russia, I entered the American education system already carrying a sense of not quite belonging. Add a learning disability diagnosed early in childhood, and school became a place I endured rather than enjoyed. In a system built for neurotypical learners, I spent years feeling like the problem, rather than recognizing that the environment was simply not built for the way my brain worked. That experience is exactly why I am pursuing a career in education, and eventually a Doctorate in Educational Leadership. I want to be the change I desperately needed as a student. Seven years into my career, starting my mission in East Side San Jose as an English teacher, I have seen firsthand how transformative it is when a student finally feels seen in a classroom. When a neurodivergent student who has been told they are behind suddenly lights up because a lesson was taught in a way that clicked for them, it is not a small moment. It is everything. Those moments are why I show up every day. My work has always been guided by a simple belief: students should look forward to coming to school. Not tolerate it. Not survive it. Look forward to it. That belief shapes every lesson I plan, every conversation I have with a struggling student, and every advocacy effort I make on behalf of learners who feel invisible in traditional settings. As for who inspires me, the honest answer is my students. Specifically, the ones who remind me of myself. The ones who are bright and curious and creative, but who get lost in systems that reward conformity over ingenuity. Watching them find their confidence, their voice, and their love of learning is the greatest professional privilege I have ever known. I am also inspired by educators like Kathy Small, whose story resonates deeply with me. She earned her credential one night class at a time while continuing to work, then spent decades showing up for the youngest and most formative learners. That kind of quiet, sustained dedication to students is the model I carry with me. It is not about recognition. It is about the long game of investing in people. As someone who plans to complete her EdD through night classes, I find her story especially inspiring. Pursuing my EdD while teaching full time is my version of that same commitment. One course at a time, I am building the knowledge and leadership skills to create systemic change for neurodivergent students and others who have been marginalized by traditional schooling. My goal is to move beyond the individual classroom and shape educational environments and policies that make belonging the rule, not the exception. The Kathleen L. Small Teaching Scholarship would support that mission directly. As someone who is self-funding this doctoral journey, every resource makes a meaningful difference in how far and how fast I can go. More than the financial support, being considered for a scholarship honoring an educator who gave 25 years to young learners in the San Jose area is a reminder that this work matters, and that the people who came before us paved the way for the changes still ahead.