Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week and we at EdTrust want to pause and honor the teachers who first sparked our dreams — the ones who saw our brilliance before the world fully did.

We invite you to join us:
Who was a teacher who believed in you, and how does their impact show up in the work you do today?

For me, that teacher was Mrs. Sharon Purcell, my seventh grade homeroom and social studies teacher at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC.

Mrs. Purcell was more than just my social studies and DC history teacher; she truly saw me. She believed I had something special to offer and pushed me to move beyond simply memorizing facts — encouraging me to think critically about the past and what it means for today.

Through her lessons, I learned about the long and unfinished struggle for voting rights, especially for Black people and women. She introduced us to names that too often go overlooked like Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Sojourner Truth  — leaders who fought not just for gender equity but for racial justice in the suffrage movement.

Mrs. Purcell went further than our history books. She encouraged me to run for student council — a decision that led to me greeting President George H.W. Bush when he visited our school.

She deepened my love for my hometown, teaching me the stories of Washington, DC: how my neighborhood Chevy Chase, and those like it were split when Maryland ceded land to form the nation’s capital. And how Alice Deal Junior High sits atop Fort Reno, the highest natural point in DC — once a Civil War fort where that, during the Cold War, became host to “Cartwheel,” one of seven government sites designated as a shelter in the event of a nuclear attack. I was so inspired by what I learned that WAMU-FM invited me to share my love of DC history on the air.

Because of Mrs. Purcell, I learned the transformative power of storytelling.

I understood that history isn’t just about the past — it’s about seeing the patterns that shape today’s struggles and understanding how to change them.

It’s no accident that I built a career centered on advocacy, communications, and justice. Mrs. Purcell helped light that path long before I had the words to name it.

This week, as we build the future of public education together, let’s remember the teachers who made our journeys possible — and commit to creating a system that sees, believes in, and invests in every student’s brilliance.

Who was the teacher that changed your life?

Tag them. Honor them. Carry their legacy forward. Drop their name and a few words about their influence on LinkedIn, Instagram, or X, — let’s uplift those who nurtured us as we fight to build an education system that supports every student.