Off To Teach Lessons Learned
Graduating Senior Reflects on Own Education as She Prepares to Educate Others
Perla Silva (SFS'08) knows what it’s like to beat the odds, and she now wants to change the odds for other young people.
A native of El Cenizo, a Mexican border town right outside of Laredo, Texas, Silva grew up in "a typical barrio" where family life is strong and parents want good educations for their children. Nearly 99 percent of the population is Latino.
The oldest child of teachers, she grew up in a household where education was deeply valued. She skipped a grade at age five. And ironically, upon her arrival in the U.S. school system, she was held back to the grade in which she belonged due to her unfamiliarity with English.
"We only spoke Spanish in our household," recalls Silva, who first heard English at the age of six.
With her parent's support, she met the challenge of becoming bilingual, she excelled in school, leading her to serve as valedictorian of her high school.
As a Patrick Healy Fellow at Georgetown, she worked with children in the Anacostia area of Washington, D.C., through a program called Kids2College. She talked to sixth-graders three times a week about the importance of higher education.
As a senior at Georgetown, Silva became a U.S. citizen and took an immigrant ethnography course that allowed her and a group of other students to film a documentary. Her group chose education, and went to the District's Woodrow Wilson Senior High School to document the impact of the school’s substantial immigrant population.
"There are people struggling to make it," she says. "And if I can put myself in a position to make change, I'm going to do that."
Silva took classes at Georgetown on immigration, human rights and the foundations of education, among other courses.
"You can’t help but be prepared,"she says. "It's so academically challenging here, and not only do you learn so much from your professors, you learn so much from your peers."
The student is now about to become a teacher.
The Mexico native recently applied and was accepted to Teach For America, a nonprofit program that trains recent graduates to teach in the country's lowest-income urban and rural communities. Her first assignment is to teach a five-week curriculum to students in Philadelphia. By August, she expects to be assigned to teach special education within the D.C. public school system.
"I'm looking forward to this," she says. "It will definitely be a challenge, but a worthwhile one."
Silva hopes she can leave an impression on her own students similar to the impact her professors on the Hilltop have made on her. One of those professors is Dan Porterfield, whose human rights class she took during her time at Georgetown.
"She told me that she wanted to roll up her sleeves right away and make a demonstrable difference for children and communities looking for educational opportunity," Porterfield said. "Perla has the kind of determination to help every single child in her class make significant academic gains -- every single one."
Silva says a huge part of her decision to apply to Teach For America came from Georgetown's Jesuit influence.
"They teach you to not only do what’s good, but to do the greater good," she says. "It pushes you to go above and beyond."
Silva is not alone with that thought. When Teach For America first began 18 years ago, Georgetown became one of the first institutions to participate and is now one of the program’s top 10 producers. This year, about 169 Georgetown students, 10 percent of the senior class, applied to the program. Of those, 59 were selected, making Teach for America the No. 1 private employer of Georgetown graduates. The program’s founder and chief executive officer, Wendy Kopp will be this year's commencement speaker for Georgetown College.
"Teach For America looks for individuals with high academic and leadership credentials, and Perla came highly recommended by her professors," says Stephen de Man, a 2004 Georgetown graduate who is now director of Teach For America's Eastern Recruitment Team. "You just know that when she’s in the classroom with her students next year that she will hold them to a high standard."
