Michelle Cody

Peer Leader, Lowell High School

"Michelle teaches and leads from the heart. She has developed relationships with her students, their families, as well as the greater Bayview community to ensure that her students are supported and know that she will always have their best interest in mind. While staff have come and gone to Willie Brown Middle School, Michelle has continued to engage and nurture Willie Brown students throughout the year. We need more people like her."

Michelle Cody is an alumnus of Peer Resources and Aim High, a San Francisco native who found, after service to others, that teaching was her calling. She started teaching and educating others as a young person, working as a Master Teacher at Aim High's summer program from 2001 till 2013. Within Aim High, she has gone to co-lead a site at Willie Brown Middle School in the Bayview. She received her Masters in Teaching from the Urban Education and Social Justice program at the University of San Francisco in 2015, started teaching at Aptos Midle School, and left to be one of the founding, and enduring, teachers of the re-established Willie Brown Middle School. Michelle is a graduate of Howard University, a recipient of the Alum of the Year award from Aim High in 2016, a recipient of the Emergent Teacher of the Year from CUE SF 2018-2019, and in the same year, a recipient of Mentor of the Year from Mentoring for Success.

"As a young African American woman, I am here for the students who look like me AND for those who will hire people who have lived my same experiences. I want to support my students as we engage in rigorous academic conversations and learning. I want to motivate students who have horrible relationships with Math, helping them to create positive moments that will change their interactions with the subject. More importantly, I know that this challenge is just that--A HUGE challenge. It is not enough to want to be an agent of change--because desire is not enough. I need to continue to surround myself with other educators that want to disrupt the way that we present Math and Science to our students. I want to collaborate and challenge the thinking of our academic institutions so that we can cultivate young folks that will go into the STEM [Science, Technolog, Engineering and Math] fields. I want my students to see me as an ally and someone who will push them towards greatness. I want to help them make the most of their middle school experiences both academically and socially. But most importantly, I want them to see themselves as amazing, dope, critical pieces of this world.

"For me, collaboration, innovation, and risk taking is a must. We are not doing this doing it alone. I am super passionate about the work that I am doing as an educator, however, I am hyper aware of the many roadblocks (both internally and externally). Teaching is a wonderful craft but it becomes exceptional when you become learner and teacher simultaneously.

"I truly believe that teaching is an ACT of social justice. In order for us as educators to make radical changes, we need to create radical communities of learning, teaching, innovation and creation."

Michelle Cody