Video Spotlight: Gabriel Anaya

Last weekend I spent my Saturday night at a fundraising event hosted by the school where I teach. The purpose of the evening was to raise money for our scholarship fund. 17% of our student population (1 in 6 students) receives financial aid to attend our school and the average award is $17,000. The goal of the evening was to raise ½ million dollars for our scholarship fund through a combination of ticket sales, raffle tickets, silent auction, live auction, and outright donation. I was able to attend the event because the parents of one of my students offered to buy my ticket. Events like this are a huge mixed bag for me. I often find it incredibly uncomfortable being around so much affluence (mostly because of the casual way the upper class are able to talk about and spend large amounts of money in a way so intensively different from my own experiences), and yet these events can also feel inspirational to me when I see others’ willingness to so generously share what they have. (Yes, there are often intense politics involved with such charity/generosity, but I also have to be thankful for what can be done with that money rather than focus too intensely on the other aspects that are much harder for me to deal with.)

During the evening, Gabriel Anaya, a graduating senior, shared a video he had made for the event. I’ve been lucky enough to work with Gabriel in a limited way this school year. His high school science course “Global Local Connections” (GLC) has spent some time working collaboratively with my kindergarten students. (We did a whole bunch of planting together and last week harvested arugula from our school’s hoop houses and made arugula butter and pizza.) Gabriel seems a genuinely kind-natured guy, somewhat soft spoken (at least with me and my students), but pretty aware of who he is. During one the days the GLC students were in my room, Gabriel asked if he could shoot some video of what was going on. During the scholarship event, I saw the faces of my students and the faces of many other students in our school community reflected back to me and to a room of several hundred other adults. And I cried.

When the video ended, Gabriel, who was on stage, was given a standing ovation. It brought him to tears as well. He talked about the power of education to realize your own potential, and he spoke about how his experiences as a high school student have made him believe that he has something of value to offer the world.

I talked to Gabriel this week when he was again visiting my classroom. My partner teacher and I asked if he’d be willing to share a copy of his video with us, so that we, in turn, could pass it on to our classroom’s entire parent body. He generously agreed. His video is below.

I teach because I believe in the power of education to change lives and make them better. Education is about connection and passion and compassion. And Gabriel helped me remember that sometimes we get it right. As the end of the school year approaches, I’m sending love and peace out into the universe on his behalf and on behalf of all the others working to realize their potential in the world.


If you’d like to see a few of Gabriel’s other videos, you can find them here: “ICE,” “Homecoming,” and "Marwen Made 'Em.”  You can also visit his YouTube channel.