Impacting the world is a difficult thing to do. After all, there are billions of people in the world, spanning billions of miles and I'm just one person, hoping to make a difference. So how does one person change the world? Well, that part is surprisingly not as difficult as I thought. It starts with one person, yes, but that one person meets other people and shares their ideals. Those people meet other people and so on. The most I can do is hope to spread the right ideals with the people that I'm close with and hope that they will spread them in turn. I work with a lot of children, and children have the capacity to be both the sweetest creatures in the world and the meanest, but one thing I've learned from working with kids is that the hate that we have as adults is learned, not inherent. Teaching kids how to feel their feelings without hurting anyone, to be accepting of people from all walks of life, and to become better people for tomorrow is a privilege that I don't take lightly, and it's just as important as any curriculum I can hope to teach. Interconnectedness is something that I feel we are losing in current times, and with that, we lose part of our humanity. This is a challenge that I've especially faced after COVID, both with the children I care for and with my own peers in college. How can anyone hope to combat that in a world that so desperately wants us to be disconnected from each other? It starts with one person, reaching out to others and offering to be a village. The age-old adage that "it takes a village to raise a child" leaves out a crucial detail- how the village came to be in the first place. Villages cannot be created or sustained alone. They have to be continuously added to, nurtured and allowed to grow. That is how we change the world, by reaching out to others, fighting against a world that wants so desperately for us to be isolated, and saying "hey, I know things are looking bleak right now, but let's get through this together". That bridge is all that it takes to make a positive impact on the world. Being there for people who need it, but might be too embarrassed or prideful to ask for help is the least we can do for each other to make the world a better place.

Where would we be without education? Behind every successful person, there has been a teacher to encourage them. That encouragement is why I want to teach. Last year, I volunteered to work tech at my local theater when they were putting on a kid's production of Pinocchio. When you are working shows for kids that little, you're more of their mentor than a tech person. They loved me and I loved them. After a month, many students saw me as a confidant and someone who could give good advice if they needed it. I was quickly a favorite around all of the students. Then I learned about something genuinely heartbreaking. There was a student who had severe ADHD and none of the other students wanted to be friends with him because he was different. Even the teachers would refuse to work with him and sometimes would complain about him in meetings for a disability he was born with. I was usually the one that worked with him because my mentor, the music director at the time, knew I would be able to help because I had an understanding that many of the neurotypical teachers did not have. We worked together and saw massive improvements because my methods were hands-on in a way that kept him busy enough to not be bored but not overstimulating to distract him from the task at hand. I became the one to work with him from that moment on. The teachers asked what my secret was, and all I could say was that I've been there. As a student of the same theater, I was that kid. I was the one that the teachers complained about in their meetings and no one could handle me. I guess I can say that because of those teachers, I wanted to go into teaching. Not to be like them, but to be better than them. Every child deserves the best possible chance to learn and it is our job to make sure that they get that chance. Even though the show ended last spring, some of my former students will still text or call me to ask for advice on friends, school, or really anything because they know that I will be there to lend an ear. As for the kid that I mentored, he played one of the leads in the show. The director didn't know if he could handle the responsibility, but he did great and fostered a love of theater. His mom found me after the show to thank me specifically for being there to help her son. That sparked my love for this field. All in all, we should be doing our best for all of our students and providing good examples to make sure that accepting kids turn into accepting adults.

The point of everyday hero’s is that they’re everywhere, from the people who work at the pound scooping disgusting litter boxes for free, to our people who work in law enforcement, to people like me, who despite having some problems with my parents, still put those aside to give kids a fun spring break. I’m Lindsey, and I work tech for kids shoes at my local theater as volunteer work. I love to work with kids, especially late elementary to early middle school, which my dad says is a saint’s work. They’re at the age when they’ve just learned or are learning about the truth about all of the mythological creatures of childhood (think Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus) which is beautiful to watch as they grow up into young adults. Usually at my theater, the education manager and director have me work with students with special needs, like hyperactive students, mostly because I used to be that hyperactive student and was admittedly probably a handful. They like having me work with these students because I know how to handle coping mechanisms and still get ample work done. People also say I’m just a big kid at heart and I think it’s because when I was younger, I wanted to be grown up to quickly, so now I want to make sure these kids don’t grow up too fast. I got my wish, when my parents and I were locked in the house together because of the pandemic. I didn’t know how much they fought when I was at school. They would have intense arguing matches weekly. For a while, they wanted to get a divorce, and then they would mend their relationship, and then it would crumble again. This cycle goes on and on. Eventually, I got tired. I told them to do it because they would start complaining about the other as soon as they left the room. It was tiring being their therapist all the time. My mom would move from the basement, to her bedroom with my dad. It would change too much. Then something changed. I don’t know what, but they fight less now. I don’t rely on it because whenever there is quiet, it’s usually before a big fight. But when that happens, I go to my Grammys house just up the road and spend the day there. To get my mind off of it, I work with the kids. I have a job at the country club that pays me minimum wage to work their special events, over the summer, I man waterslides and fill water balloons for a water balloon fight. I would do it for free, and I do at the theater. Hearing the kids call me “Miss Lindsey” is payment enough and was enough to put me down my current road of majoring in education.