Teachers Believe in Us Before We Give Them a Reason To

A trumpet, a public school band room, and the teacher who saw something in me

Happy Public Schools Week.

I grew up in Hollywood, Florida. Public schools, the whole way through.

In sixth grade at Nova Middle School, I joined band. Picked up a trumpet. My director was a man named Mr. Lisena, and I was, to put it charitably, not good. There was a kid in my section who was extraordinary — he sat first chair, and he deserved every bit of it. I was somewhere further back, on a beat-up rental Bundy, doing my best to keep up.

But I kept showing up. Kept practicing. And Mr. Lisena kept believing in me — not because I had earned it yet, but because that’s what teachers like him do. They invest before the return is visible. They see the version of you that you haven’t grown into yet, and they treat you like you’re already there.

I worked my way from beginning band to symphonic band. Eventually — second chair.

My dad was watching the whole time. When he saw I was serious, he did something I’ll never forget. He bought me Mr. Lisena’s personal trumpet — a silver Benge horn. Not a rental. Not a hand-me-down. A beautiful instrument that a real musician had played, passed to a kid who had finally started to become one.

I had earned it. And I knew it.

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None of that happens without a public school.

Not without a program that existed, that was funded, that had a room and an instrument budget and a teacher who chose to show up every day for kids who were still figuring out who they were. Remove any one of those things — the funding, the program, the teacher — and that story doesn’t happen. That kid doesn’t find himself. That trumpet sits in someone else’s hands, or no hands at all.

Public schools are where we learn to read and write and add. Yes. But they’re also where kids find out what they’re made of. Where you discover you’re capable of something hard. Where an adult who has no obligation to believe in you — believes in you anyway. Where you learn to be part of something bigger than yourself, to sit in a section, to listen, to contribute, to earn your chair.

That’s not just education. That’s formation. That’s citizenship. That’s the slow, unglamorous, irreplaceable work of building a person.

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Teachers do this every day. In every subject. In every school. For every kid who walks through the door — the confident ones and the lost ones, the first-chair kids and the ones in the back still figuring out which end of the horn to blow into.

They do it for pay that doesn’t reflect what the work is worth. They do it in buildings that need repair, with supplies they often buy themselves, under pressure that has only grown. They do it because they believe — genuinely, stubbornly believe — that every kid in front of them is worth the investment.

They’re right.

Every kid deserves what I had. A program that’s there. A teacher who sees them. A chance to find out what they’re made of — regardless of their zip code, their background, or where they’re starting from.

Strong public schools build strong people.

And strong people build everything else.

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Mr. Lisena, if you’re out there — thank you. 🎺

This Public Schools Week, I’m proud to stand with @webelieveinedu — a community of parents, educators, and advocates working to protect and strengthen public education for every kid. Join the movement.

Be kind, and, you know…