I grew up in Brooklyn and attended PS 169. I always wanted to be an astronaut. I was fascinated with outer space. I idealized it. Then, when the first teacher went up in 1985, there was that horrible accident where the space shuttle exploded. That was a switch for me.
I looked around and saw things that were happening in my community. I remembered my teachers, like Mr. Levine, my music teacher, who tried to find the person behind my shyness instead of giving up on me. I had Miss Murphy in fifth grade who always talked about her travels and inspired me to be the traveler that I am today. It got me thinking, ‘Why do I want to go explore space, when there’s so much that I can do here on Earth?’
So that tragedy with Christa McAuliffe ultimately made me think about becoming a teacher. From then on, that’s been my focus.
In college, I was an education major. I decided to join Teach for America because I wanted to go above and beyond, and I felt like that program was going to push me to get there. It helped. I started teaching in the Bronx, and then I taught in Harlem.
The program exposed me to a lot of different people who had the same drive. It gave me motivation to keep doing what I was doing. Back then, Teach For America was still like a grassroots organization. There were people who might have been in the Peace Corps, and people who did community service. We all really wanted to make a change.
We all believed that one day all children in this nation will have an equal education.
I started to feel like our students were being shortchanged. I saw the value of a teacher being there for the student—building relationships, supporting them—but instead I saw teachers constantly coming in and out. It was hard to build community, hard to build trust. That began to bother me. It started to feel like our students were becoming guinea pigs.
Children can misinterpret the meaning of someone leaving. A student might think: ‘My teacher is leaving—was it because of me? Because I was misbehaving?’ They rarely hear the real reason, because when teachers leave, no one explains it to the kids. You don’t know what kind of residue that leaves behind. I definitely had a problem with that.
I also had a problem with the fact that the administration at the time didn’t reflect the student body. When core team members tried to move up, that wasn’t encouraged. The hypocrisy bothered me—why couldn’t we be in leadership positions to better support our students? I came in as an optimist and left pessimistic.
I’ll never forget one of my students in New York. She was a special education student. She struggled, but she worked hard. It broke my heart, because she kept trying and just wasn’t getting it.
In elementary school, kids are still so young—you don’t see the fruits of your labor right away. But later, I heard she had made it to high school and was an excellent student. She worked so hard. It was so nice to hear that it finally paid off— she persevered, she stuck with it, and she didn’t give up. Even as a little kid, it’s like she knew that she was gonna get to it.
That’s what keeps me going. When students show that kind of perseverance, it reminds me that I need to have that same attitude with them. Because you never know when the moment will come when the lightbulb finally turns on.
I love teaching in public schools. One of my goals is to nurture students’ drive: to help them work hard, prepare, and stay focused. I get very serious with them. I’m strict, but it’s because I don’t want to see them suffering later on in school. I know education is one of the surest ways to improve the quality of your life, if you dedicate the time it deserves. And some kids need to dedicate much more than others.
I contact their parents. We set goals. We keep portfolios. I’m a big believer in students being able to see how their work is progressing. I’m very consistent with them. I show PowerPoints with the goals for the quarter, and they write down their own.
For example, I have two really sharp students who right now are among my lowest performers. I’m like, ‘What’s going on here?’ So we met at lunch and talked through their hopes and dreams. Then we mapped out the steps they’d need to take in class to get there. I even included the steps I’d need to take, because I’ve learned you have to interrupt the usual power structure. They need to see that I’m also learning.
For example, empathy can be a weakness of mine. I can be so goal-oriented that I forget to slow down and step into others’ shoes. So we built in reflection together: at the start of class, we review what we’re trying to do, and at the end the three of us huddle to evaluate each other.
Teaching is hard. You have such a wide variety of levels and behaviors, and you’re trying to bring everyone onto the same page. It’s the hardest thing.
I just want them to have growth. The goal for everyone is to get as close to the grade-level standards as possible. I’m just trying to keep them moving and progressing. I do these reading logs, and the goal is to read at least three days a week. They set their own targets, like ‘I’m going to read 90 minutes’ or ‘I’m going to finish two books this month.’ I track that with them, and at the end of each week, they give it to me.
I love looking at their logs, giving them feedback, and watching their growth. When I see what they’re really doing, and compare it to what I’m teaching, I can see the progress. We observe data together, and I try to use math so they can see concrete examples of how their work improves with their efforts.
If you work, you’re gonna see the results, but it takes such a long time.
I feel like in this country, we treat failure and mistakes in a way that shames us. We’ve got to get rid of that because it’s human to make mistakes. We can’t keep selling this narrative of perfection.
Michael Jordan wasn’t always a perfect basketball player. When a reporter asked him once about failure, he said, ‘I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.’
That’s part of the job. You fail most of the time. When you talk to celebrities, artists, famous people… they all have a failing story. They have several failing stories, and those are the stories our students don’t hear. They only see the success at the end.
You’ve gotta love your students. I don’t know how else to teach, because no matter what you do, I have to love you enough to stick by you and help you see this through. The word ‘love’ is rarely used in education. I think ignoring that makes things harder.
If you’re looking at a child and you have disgust for them inside, or if you think they’re inferior because of their race, they’re not going to learn from you because they can read it all over you. You could have a Harvard education, but if you come in here and don’t love them, you’re not gonna get very far. You have to want the best for them. You’re like a second parent.
I wish more people cared about everyone in the room, not just their own child. We need a collective value: we’re all in this together. That whole divisiveness and competition stuff doesn’t serve anyone. Not privileged schools, not poor schools. Even with competitions and Blue Ribbon Schools and all these awards and stuff; when you give one school an award that has more resources, and then the other schools get nothing, are they ever going to collaborate together and support each other?
Everyone has value, and we should help each other out. I notice that some of my students aren’t familiar with that concept. Sometimes I see it come out in phrases like, ‘I’m the GOAT.’ And I’ll say, ‘There is no GOAT. We are a herd here.’
To me, teaching is like a relationship. At first, you love students for superficial, on-the-surface reasons. But after more than 30 years of teaching, I’ve learned the way you love changes. It gets more compassionate and more empathetic. Not in just a year, but over time.
I think community in a school is very important. I’m really grateful for my principal because she has a lot of empathy. She understands parents, she’s flexible, and she doesn’t make you feel guilty when taking a day off (as long as you plan in advance, talk with your team, and make sure not everyone is out at the same time).
We’re all human beings. I try not to focus too much on age differences, even though students’ brains are less developed than ours. What I’ve learned is that as adults, we walk around with a lot of unchecked trauma and experiences that influence how we act and how we treat others. Not everybody goes to therapy. Not everybody talks about it. We suppress things, and it manifests in different ways—agitating people or pushing them away.
I’m working on empathy overall, because I feel like we also need empathy for the adults in the building. Too often we focus only on the children, like we have to be superheroes who are always there for them. But we’re not superheroes. I tell my students when I’m offended, because they need to understand that their words can hurt, and that when the group is acting out, it impacts me.
I think we have this myth that adults should always know better. I think we have to change that narrative, because adults have pain too. We carry problems too. We need empathy for each other just as much as we do for children. That’s why I love our principal, because she gets that. She shows empathy for adults as well as for kids.
That’s when I really understood the importance of leadership: you have to have leadership whose values and beliefs align with your own.
Sometimes I wonder how education will change, and then I wonder how those changes will affect rigor and the level of preparation. My worry is this balance: helping them with the basics of being humane, but at the same time making sure students are really reading, writing, and doing math.
There’s always a small group of kids who excel, a large group in the middle, and another group that just never does. That’s what wears me down. Why can’t we get this right? I don’t blame this generation. Sometimes it just feels like the system itself is failing them.
Even if kids don’t have parents who can take them on fancy trips, they can still learn so much just from the world around them. I’ve always imagined schools as more of a community center. Places where you have medical and dental services, workshops, opportunities, and training for everybody. That kind of hub makes more sense to me than assessment-based institutions. It’s funny because assessments are supposed to ensure kids are thriving and performing on grade level, but so often, it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s happening.
Sometimes, the lessons seem boring to me. I’ll think, ‘Damn, I have to teach this three times today.’ Maybe the whole concept of school needs to change.
Maybe schools should focus more on creating spaces where people learn not just academics, but how to connect with others, prepare for the future, and grow from meeting people with different backgrounds. That’s the kind of learning experiment I’d like to see.
–Cesarina Santana
Teacher in DC Public Schools
Washington, DC
Since our interview, Cesarina Santana has become the librarian at her school, strengthening students’ ability to connect and grow from PreK to eighth grade. She is still working at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School, where 9/10 students are students of color and the team provides a dual-language Spanish program.
The school has a thriving family engagement group called Parents and Teachers United. In 2008, families saved their school from closure by holding “cacerolazos” (banging pots and pans to music) on Georgia Avenue in DC. On the day I visited, there was a shooting nearby, and people were discussing how to inform the community more quickly.
