The periodic table of elements has always fascinated me. Always. I did not understand a word of it. In a misguided attempt to avoid having to dissect a frog, I’d opted to take high school chemistry instead of biology. No hapless frogs lost their innards to a scalpel in my hand. My strategy paid off—or did it? My chemistry teacher would assign chapter readings and then test us. That was it. Sitting at real lab tables, on real lab stools, beneath a beautiful poster of the periodic table of elements, we got chapter readings and tests. We once made a batch of what turned out to be peanut brittle using Bunsen burners and tongs. Budding chemists all, the appearance of the peanuts toward the end tipped us off. Still, no one explained anything of how that elegant table came to be. No one pointed out even the slightest microscopic connections to me. For the most part, the mysteries of the elements remain locked to me even now. What a terrible way to teach chemistry—or algebra and geometry, or even for humanity’s sake, history and literature.

Chapter readings aside, memorization of facts, formulas, and tests are no way to introduce these amazing subjects to young minds. This is especially terrible when these same young minds will need to become the change so many of us fear. They will make connections between our history and our future that can renew hope in all of us. They will understand the struggles and triumphs of people they may never meet. Our lives are connected. The education of young minds should make us all safer. More than talent is being wasted. Our students face challenges without precedence; there is no answer key.

Many moons ago when I was still young enough to be asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’I would hesitate, then answer quietly, hoping no one would hear and deny me. It is difficult to explain why anyone so young would expect to be denied the chance to make his or her dreams reality. Yet many children, growing up in a world that does not nurture or support them, believe their dreams deserve a fatalistic NO. Education is strong enough to counter that denial. Every child deserves access to an education that connects their ability to dream with their ability to think, to create, and to change the world they live in. Believe it or not, the world needs more educated dreamers. In becoming an educator, I am living up to my own dream to change the world.

At least, I hope so. Hope is “a desire for some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable.”This definition of hope is from the Encyclopedic Edition of the Webster’s Dictionary of The English Language—Unabridged. I didn’t memorize the definition. I looked it up. There is no need to memorize it, I can always look it up again—even online. While I have never been a fan of memorization, I have always loved books. Concepts and ideas found in books expanded my dreams and changed my life. This despite the fact that I had changed schools more than six times in eight years before high school. Even when my reality was less than encouraging, through books, I learned to work for a life that I could only imagine.

There was a time when people were forbidden to read or to have books. Books might give people ideas. And so they do. My mother can be credited with inspiring my love for books. She, my two sisters, and I lived in an upstairs flat with mostly books—including a set of Encyclopedia Britannica—for entertainment. My mother worked as a sewing-machine operator for the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, Michigan. When she could no longer find reliable care for us, my sisters and I moved south to live with our grandmother. At my grandmother’s house, there still wasn’t much in the way of entertainment beyond books, school, and dreaming. One of thirteen siblings, my mother did not go to college, but she had huge dreams. She dreamed of an education for us that she herself could only imagine. She had no real experience to show her what our education should look like beyond the diploma. Yet, she was determined her daughters would be college graduates, and so we are. I learned to dream big as well.

Dreams are a good place to start. So are talent, inspiration, and a willingness to work hard. All of these are good places to start; they are not enough. My fascination for the periodic tables did not help me to understand them. My attempts at memorizing them didn’t work either. A similar thing happened when I tried to teach myself to write in cursive by trying as hard as I could, or to paint, to sing, or to play my grandmother’s piano, with nothing more than inspiration from books. I had talent, I had ideas, I certainly had big dreams; without know-how, I was hopeless. We are all born with talent. Knowledge is passed down through generations. We all need teachers who believe in us.

Much of what I struggled to memorize in school is of no use to me now. The industry in which I began my own career has changed. The tools I now use were not invented when I started. What remains is my ability to think, to learn, and to create. The world changes so quickly, we cannot know what information children will need. For many, struggling with basic survival, to focus on anything that doesn’t bring immediate gratification seems like so much useless dreaming. Yet, we must think ahead. How can anyone be prepared for so much change? What can it mean to be educated? What practical place is there in education for ideas like imagination and hope? The world dictates, our children will not thrive without an education that prepares them to think critically for themselves. They need teachers who believe their ideas deserve support.

Today, students need access to a continuum of knowledge, skill, and habit too vast to be set in stone. Tools and industries change. Teachers must make connections that empower talented, imaginative children to construct knowledge for a change-proof and productive future. This is indeed an exciting time to teach. The pedagogy has been transformed through years of experience and collaboration, and so have I. As a creative professional, I’ve worked to communicate complex ideas to vast audiences. The essence of my work is to connect people with concepts and ideas. In my teaching practice, I help young minds to build connections with concepts that matter to their own lives. I am a creative teacher who believes every child should be equipped to shape its own life.

My students and I will know how to access and analyze information from multiple sources. We will focus on challenges from different perspectives, and use real world contexts to build the practical knowledge we need. My students and I will know how to imagine, create, and generate answers that lead us into even deeper exploration. We will produce innovative solutions to the challenges we take on. We will gain wisdom as we learn together. As they grow up to become full citizens of the world, I will become part of the army of teachers preparing young minds. All children are talented and imaginative; not all children believe this about themselves. I do. As an educator, I will provide hope. People with hope do more than just believe; people with hope work to find a way. Teaching is changing my life. My students will change the world.