Sometimes, Toni Johnson’s students at Westlake High School in south Fulton County don’t think they matter.
Fueled by a passion to change that narrative, she developed a project that she hopes will boost her students’ confidence.
The “Make Your Mark” project allows students a chance to consider who they are, why they are important and how to shape the community around them.
Johnson, a ninth-grade English teacher, was granted $7,500 through the Atlanta Families' Awards for Excellence in Education to implement the project. Part of that money went toward the purchase of DNA testing kits for the top project submissions.
In order for students to gain confidence for the future, Johnson believes they have to understand where they come from.
“I want them to be able to say, ‘No, this is who I am, and I'm proud of it,’” she told Channel 2 Action News.
Over the course of eight weeks, Johnson’s students read Homer’s “The Odyssey,” completed their own family tree and explored one aspect of their own identity in an essay, according to the Atlanta Families’ Awards organization. Ten of those students were given the testing kits to complete a study with a biology teacher.
Like the character Odysseus, Johnson’s students each have a personal journey, she told Channel 2. They created “journey maps” on large squares that Johnson intends to use as ceiling tiles in her classroom.
Johnson, a graduate of Columbia University who moved to Atlanta to teach in 2016, also asked her students to come up with a proposal for a service project that used their specific gifts and abilities to serve a civic, arts, education or environmental need in their community. Students with the top 10 proposals will be given $150 to implement their projects.
“My kids are so talented and they are capable of doing so much more,” she said through tears.
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