Every teacher has that one "First year on the job" story. The story that they'll never forget and will stay with them forever. I'm going to tell mine. A Thread.

In 2008, I wrapped up my Bachelors and started looking for teaching jobs. This was December 2008, so as you can imagine, looking for teaching jobs in the middle of the school year isn't the easiest task.

I wanted to teach in a high school, but by February, I was ready to take what I could get. I ended up taking a job in a very underfunded and school district. Coming from a nearly 100% white suburb to a school where there wasn't a single white person in the building was a shift

I went in thinking "Hey! I'm dedicated. I'm ready to do some good here! I bet this will be perfect!" Boy was I wrong. I learned very quickly as a first year teacher how hard it is to teach when you don't have the cultural competency needed, not matter how hard you try

I came in at the end of February, and by March I was already applying for other jobs for the following school year(Still wanted that high school gig). So I never really got settled.

I wasn't there a month before I accepted the job offer of my current placement, but I still had about 3 months left before Summer, so I was determined to leave a mark and do the best job I can before I left for my new placement.

I had some successes... and plenty of failures, but I really did learn a lot. But the one thing that will always stick with me was a question that one of my students asked me at the end of April. "Mr. Fowler, why are you here?"

She didn't say it in a way to imply that I didn't want to be there. She said it implying that I could be at a "better" school. As in, "Mr. Fowler, why are you wasting your time here? You don't belong here and you could work at a better school."

This was a 12 year old girl. To this day I think about her and think about everything packed into that one question. What she thinks of herself. What she thinks of me.... at age 12. As soon as she said that, my heart just dropped

Twitter isn't the best place to extrapolate my thoughts on her question, but I never stopped thinking about it. Jasmine would be in her early 20s today. Sometimes I search her name on Google to see what comes up, but I never found her.

People talk about the teachers that had an influence on their lives, but Jasmine has made me a better teacher and one day I would like to thank her if I can.

Maybe even try to do a better job for her now in some way