I am a teacher. All my life I have been a teacher. When people ask me how long I have been teaching; I always say since I was three when my brother was born. In undergrad, I studied Psychology knowing that I would always go back to education for a career. After my Junior year in college I knew I wanted to work in MN for the summer… and that’s when I became a teaching fellow at Breakthrough Twin Cities in 2005, Breakthrough’s first year.

When I read the Breakthrough teaching manual I cried. Seriously. It was everything I believed education was about. Connecting. Bridges. Giving under-resourced students a chance to achieve their highest potential. It’s what I believe. It’s why I’m an educator. I wish all children could have the opportunity to reach their goals and dreams; and if I can help them get there as a teacher – I can’t imagine a better job.

I never worked as hard as I worked the summer for Breakthrough. (Actually, having a two-year-old and a newborn was a little more work than my summer at Breakthrough…) I was at Breakthrough before 6am some days and didn’t leave until 6pm most days. I was ready to work, learn and grow with the students. We were all ready. That first year we were 8 teachers and 40 students. We did it all. We told the students to embrace whatever made them feel uncomfortable and we did the same. But all that hard work paid off in some life changing lessons.

Lesson number one, teaching has a lot to do with improvisation. You never know what will happen on any day and you have to be ready for anything. When I write my teaching handbook it is going to be called, “Yes and…” If you are not familiar with “yes and…” it is an improv game. Any time someone says something you have to reply with “Yes and…”

For example – Will you write a speech for the Breakthrough Booyah Bash? Yes, and I will use jazz hands. Yes, and we will smile. Yes and I will tap dance. Yes and you will sing. Yes and it will be fabulous.”

Lesson number two: laughter is the key to learning and risk taking. Every morning all the students and teachers gather together at All School Meetings. Teaching Fellows encourage our bright, motivated, shy and hesitant students to share what they are learning through public speaking, dancing, drama, and songs. Breakthrough students take huge risks and everyone is cheering them on. Sometimes they make mistakes and then we laugh and still cheer them on. Together we are all learning and growing.

Lesson number three: the summer confirmed my commitment to education. We, Teaching Fellows, made it through the summer and we felt strong. We could do anything. We worked so hard because we loved the students, we loved the mission of Breakthrough, we were committed to one another to create the best program we could. If the Breakthrough model could be in every school or if every teacher had the opportunity to experience Breakthrough – education would be transformed.

After Breakthrough, I received my elementary and social studies teaching license. Since then, I have been teaching at a charter school in St Paul called, Saint Paul City School. Breakthrough gave me the drive to teach. It introduced me to the diverse community in Saint Paul and definitely led me to the career path I am currently on. I personally think Breakthrough rocks!

I also want to thank all of you for saying YES and I WILL generously support Breakthrough Twin Cities!

Many thanks to Breakthrough Twin Cities for inviting me to speak here tonight. I am truly honored and humbled by their consideration of me as someone who could speak to the significance of Breakthrough throughout my high school and college career. I would also like to congratulate the class of 2017. Some of your most rewarding, albeit stressful, years of self-discovery are awaiting you. As you can see in this room tonight, you have hundreds of supporters behind you as you journey onward.

In 2006, I came to Breakthrough as a Native American and German seventh grade student from a single-parent household. I had never felt particularly challenged in my classes and was already excited about the idea of college. That first summer I was energized by cheering, motivating teachers, by discovering that learning could be fun, by the math problems of the day, and by my cohort of like-minded students my age who were all motivated to go to college. Six years later, as a graduating senior, I came to my own Booyah Bash having won a Gates Millennium Scholarship and admittance to Carleton College, a school that would become a central, influential, and liberating part of my life. At that bash, I was absolutely floored by the number of people I saw in the room who had supported me throughout my six years in the program and were genuinely interested in my success. Today, I am fortunate enough to stand before you as a software engineer at a tech startup, living in a thriving neighborhood of Chicago, loving life, surrounded by fantastic family and friends. It’s clear to me that Breakthrough played an enormous part in getting me where I am today. In subtle ways, Breakthrough laid the foundation upon which I could succeed in college.

“It’s clear to me that Breakthrough played an enormous part in getting me where I am today.”

From insisting that I fill out the application on my own as a sixth grader, Breakthrough incubated a culture of self-advocacy, teaching me that I wasn’t any less of a success by reaching out for help. In the middle school program, Breakthrough continually emphasized actively seeking opportunities to learn. Throughout high school but particularly throughout college, I was no stranger to seeking help when I needed it: I spent many nights in the math skills and writing centers, applying for summer funding through the career center, reaching out to alumni for networking opportunities, and meeting with professors outside of class whenever I needed to go over the material again. Undoubtedly, without reaching out, I probably wouldn’t have done nearly as well in my courses, received grants to take unpaid internships, nor made the connections that helped me get the job I wanted out of college.

However, this is not to undersell the importance of Breakthrough’s insistence on a steady work ethic. I remember fondly that my two Breakthrough summers were absolutely full of late night booyah sessions, whether building models of Hmong houses during the secret war or figuring out how to solve for X. I learned through Breakthrough that grinding away at something and pushing yourself to take the extra step to accomplish it correctly can have incredible pay-offs. During my sophomore spring, I had taken a course in Linear Algebra: As anyone who has struggled with math before might know, once you miss something foundational, it’s hard to understand any theorem that builds upon it. This happened to me, and I went into preparation for finals feeling fairly uncertain about half of the course material. The only solution I could think of was to reread the textbook, from the beginning, and do practice problems along the way. In one day, I went through 8 chapters and effectively retaught myself the entire curriculum. I ended up acing that final and walking away with an A on my transcript. It’s become part of my nature to see the benefits of pushing through the challenges, something that was first formed when I faced the challenging booyah I was presented with at Breakthrough.

Perhaps the subtlest impact Breakthrough has had on me resulted from one of the most unique aspects of Breakthrough: the relationships that students build with their teachers. Knowing that I had Breakthrough teachers supporting me through middle and high school where everyone had mutual respect for each other, regardless of age or ethnicity, made me want to engage in my education and give my complete effort. For me, these relationships with teachers shaped my interests later on in life, and put me where I am today. I’m pleased to see that Daniel Bernal is still heavily involved in the program (Daniel, please stand!). Daniel was my algebra teacher my first summer at Breakthrough. It was actually through that class that I entered seventh grade with enough confidence to ask my teacher to move me up a grade level and with enough skill that she granted my request. In college, my love of math continued. I signed up for intro to computer science, math of computer science, data structures, linear algebra, statistics, probability, regression analysis, and more, pursued two development internships in Silicon Valley and Germany, participated in a week-long career exploration of tech companies in the Twin Cities, helped found the development club at Carleton, and organized two major hackathons. Daniel gave me an everlasting gift: he made me realize more than a decade ago that I had a passion for the quantitative, something that has shaped my college career and my life.

“Daniel gave me an everlasting gift: he made me realize more than a decade ago that I had a passion for the quantitative, something that has shaped my college career and my life.”

Before I leave the stage, from the bottom of my heart, I wish to extend an immense amount of gratitude to the donors and supporters of the Breakthrough program throughout the years. Breakthrough lives on the philanthropy of those who dare to dream of a world where every child has an opportunity to rise up, regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds. Donors, I ask you to take a moment to look around and reflect on the impact you have had on me and the class of 2017, forever changing the course of our lives and supporting our ambitions to succeed. Class of 2017, I ask that you also look: one of the most colossal impressions I took away from my own Booyah Bash was that there were hundreds of people around me who both wanted the best for me, and were there to help.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone at Breakthrough who believed in me enough to give me a chance. I remember sitting in a room on the first floor of Capitol Hill Magnet Elementary School, where Jeff Ochs, Breakthrough’s founder, spoke to a small group of sixth graders chosen to hear about the program. He had a metaphor for college: we were all in a maze, and at the end of the maze was a door. That door was the door to college, and Breakthrough would give us the key. My experiences during and after Breakthrough have been proof that Jeff was right: Breakthrough really does open the door to a transformed life.

Read Shannon’s Booyah Bash Speech

As I look back at my life and the challenges that I have faced, it feels like a true miracle that I am here with you tonight, graduating from high school in a few weeks, attending the Naval Academy in the fall, let alone having the honor to give this speech tonight.

For much of my life, I’ve dealt with problems regarding my biracial identity. I was born into a loving, supportive family with an African American mother and a Caucasian father. As a result, I have always experienced inner controversy as to which race I would label myself. When filling out personal information forms, over and over I would find myself in that awkward position where the form asked for my race. I could only choose one – and I never knew which one to choose. Also, growing up has been difficult since there never seemed to be a place for me. My peers never embraced the fact that I was mixed race. They just rejected me because I would not, could not, choose one or the other. Classmates would say that I was too dark to be white or too light to be black. These comments only made me feel more isolated, with very few friends.

“I have always experienced inner controversy as to which race I would label myself… I could only choose one – and I never knew which one to choose.”

Along with racial identity, I also dealt with my shame about the fact that for many years I faced homelessness. My family already had a hard time keeping stable housing when we lived in Nebraska, but when we moved to Minnesota in 2005, that’s when it got bad. For roughly 3 years my family and I hopped around from house to house of family and friends; sometimes we had to sleep in the basements of churches just because we had nowhere else to go. As many of you know, homelessness means frequently changing schools; it also means loss – loss of friends, of beloved possessions, of stability, of memories.

All of these experiences gradually broke me and wore me down. Then came Breakthrough, my literal chance to break through. I believe that Breakthrough became something I relied on in my life, the one thing that never changed. Breakthrough believed in my potential and made me believe in it too.

“Breakthrough believed in my potential and made me believe in it too.”

Breakthrough certainly made me want to be more competitive academically. I know I may not have been a perfect student during my past 6 years of school, but Breakthrough made me strive to try to be the best I could. Breakthrough expected everyone’s best, and when you look around tonight at Breakthrough’s students, you see a group who is dedicated to performing at the highest academic level. Because of Breakthrough, I was motivated to succeed. I came to assume that, of course, I would go to college, the first one in my family to do so.

Because of Breakthrough, I’ve had enriching experiences that have really broadened my world – visiting college campuses, conducting mock trials, sitting as legislators debating a bill in the state capital. Breakthrough has led me to long term friendships with classmates who have similar goals of success, just like me. Isolation and loneliness were relegated to my past.

Also, by joining Breakthrough, I’ve noticed how my self-esteem, along with my self-confidence, has grown to a level that would’ve been unheard of for me just a few years before. There were so many “firsts”: speaking in public for the first time, performing with classmates in front of 700 applauding Breakthrough families for the first time, learning teamwork portaging canoes in the BWCA for the first time. All these Breakthrough experiences helped me gain the confidence I needed for my future.

Thanks to Breakthrough, I didn’t have to worry about being defined by my race. Thanks to Breakthrough, I was allowed to think and dream big. Thanks to Breakthrough I see a successful future for myself. Thanks to Breakthrough, I am prepared for the work that is soon to come at the Naval Academy. And, most especially, thanks to all of you and the support you have given to me and my classmates. You have made it possible for us students to change the trajectory of our lives, to become confident and ambitious individuals, to break through homelessness, poverty, and low expectations to be successful in college and in life.

Read Raven Pillmann’s Booyah Bash Speech