By Kayla Roush, Secondary Section, Harrisburg, PA:

I currently work in a school filled with diverse students who live in the inner city. Their lives are tough—much tougher than mine will ever be. Sometimes my students go hungry, and sometimes they act out because they want attention.

One student in particular has such a rough life. His father is in jail and he lives with his grandmother. He’s in sixth grade and has a first-grade reading level, and he has a speech impediment so terrible that he sounds like he has cotton balls in his mouth when he speaks. Even so, he is one of my students who never gives up. Many times he doesn’t understand the material, but he always tries, no matter how hard it is.