“I was a teacher in Nigeria. I had 41 students in my classroom....

“I was a teacher in Nigeria. I had 41 students in my classroom. Most of my students in Nigeria had no shoes, no clothes, no food. Nothing, nothing. But they wanted to learn. They showed up every day wanting to learn. When I told my colleagues that I was going to teach in America, they said: ‘Don’t do it. The students there don’t want to learn. They will scream all during class.’ In a way, they were right. My classrooms in America were much different than my classrooms in Nigeria. There were fewer students, and more resources, but there was not the same desire to learn. I’ve had to learn to teach motivation. And I’ve found that the only way it can be done is to show it myself. I try to teach each child as if they were my own. If the students see that I am trying my hardest every single day, many times they will respond by increasing their own effort.”