Samantha Sherman

Peer Leader, Marina Middle School and Lincoln High School

Alumni Intern, Balboa High School

"Samantha, though early in her "official" teaching career, has been an educator since I first met her in 7th grade. She was a leader in Peer Resources throughout her middle school and high school career, weathering 5 different Peer Resources teachers in 7 years. In many ways, she was the constant, in her program at Marina Middle School and at Lincoln HS, training the Peer Resources teachers to be the kind of leader they needed to be. While in high school, she was on Youth Council and worked at Marina's after-school program. While in college, she was a Peer Resources Intern and then worked at Lincoln High School, where she has been an English teacher for the past several years. It was never a guarantee that Sam was going to be a teacher, but it has been clear for a very long time that Sam cares deeply about the leadership of young people and wanted to spend her time believing in young people."

From Marina Middle School, through Lincoln High School, and San Francisco State University, Samantha Sherman has been a deeply engaged member of the Peer Resources community: a Peer Leader, a Youth Council member, and an Alumni Intern. She is now one of four African American teachers at her alma mater, and is a leading force in a group of teachers who started a four year Social Justice Pathway at Lincoln High School. Recognizing the inequitable outcomes for African-American and Latinx students, Samantha wanted to create a solid system that would support these students in their development and center their experiences at Lincoln. Now in its first year, Sam is one of the core teachers for the inaugural class of this pathway.

"If someone told me that I’d be in the position I’m in now as I was going through the Peer Resources programing, I would think that they were being nice, again. “Sam, you can do anything! You will have direct influence over the very population you feel your school neglects!”

"Yeah, right.

"But I’m here, in a position with direct influence and decision making power over the exact population I felt no one cared about. Thank goodness I had the opportunity to learn and thrive in a Peer Resource classroom--an open, honest space, engulfed by students with the same glint in their eyes.

"As it turns out, if you internalize the programming, you do not need to be in a position of power to exact change into your environment. You only need to be willing to run an open, honest space that your students/co-workers can feel a part of when they interact with you. I did not know that was the effect of the program until I needed to run spaces of my own. When I began working at Lincoln High school I was an attendance clerk. I personally felt the change I created in the attendance office because the school had had such an immediate reaction to my being there. The position really called me to be a liaison between families/teachers, staff/ students, and district/school site, and in that liaisonship is where I was able to use the empathy and compassion I learned from Peers.

"I’m in a new position now that I am trying to enrich with a Peers mentality each day. The impact I want to have is to spread the foundation I received to as many folks as possible."

Samantha Sherman