*This is an essay I wrote that exposes one discrepancy of the educational system in the U.S. I wrote this for the Lincoln Scholarship that I won for Centre College. The prompt said to "Describe an injustice you have witnessed or experienced and how you have worked to end this injustice."*
What I most look forward to after school is tutoring a third grader named Hincha. I recently learned that both Hincha and her mom could hardly read or write in English, because of their recent immigration to the U.S. from Uganda. Hincha’s teachers, instead of getting her the extra help she and other non-native English-speaking students require, just passed her along. This, to me, is a major injustice of the American school system and inspired me to take up the task of tutoring her. It was hard teaching someone how to read from scratch. I started off with phonics and trained her to sound out a word a letter at a time. I also read one book chapter to her each day and asked her questions to apply her critical thinking skills. I progressively gave her another slightly harder book every two weeks and incorporated technology into the lessons. It was fun seeing her smile as she listened to audiobooks. Hincha now reads at her own grade level, and I am looking forward to tutoring her again this year.
More than the help I gave her, she revived me. She forced me to think outside the box and always made me think of how I could improve myself, so she could in turn get the best learning experience possible. Most importantly however, she inspired me to fight for educational equity for all students and led me to join the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team - a student-run organization that advocates for better school climate and student representation in educational policy-making decisions. From conducting roundtables at schools all over Kentucky to writing blogs, I am now passionate about partnering with students, teachers and policymakers about closing the achievement gap for many others like my third-grade friend Hincha.