From Student to Teacher: How One Young Educator Found Her Calling
Walking into The Young Women’s Leadership School (TYWLS) of Astoria for the first time, Mayisha had no way of knowing how much the arc of her life would change. Looking back now at her journey through public school, an undergraduate degree, and a master’s degree in progress, every step along the way for this history teacher makes perfect sense!
A School Filled with Opportunity that Felt Like Home
When Mayisha and her mother went to TYWLS Astoria’s Open House in search of a middle school, something clicked immediately. They saw a school filled with leadership opportunities and a strong sense of community.
Not every part of the journey came easily. Mayisha will be the first to admit she didn’t immediately love coding classes at the STEM-focused school. Yet those skills quietly laid the groundwork for something bigger.
During one of TYWLS Astoria’s Intensives, a two-week deep dive into a project of the students’ choice, she and her teammate developed an app to address one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on the relationship between AI, humanity, and the evolving employment landscape. They refined the app further and won top honors at a national student entrepreneurship competition.
In tenth grade, she presented the wireframe of that app in a speech at the United Nations, a transformational moment that proved to her that young people’s ideas could be advocated for on a global stage.
Another pivotal moment came in eleventh grade. While reading Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Mayisha began drawing powerful lines between Jim Crow-era policies and present-day injustices. She designed a lesson plan built around the novel. She was ecstatic when her teacher asked to use it in his class the following year, a moment that affirmed her intellectual voice and her ability to influence how others learn and think.
“TYWLS gave me the ability to be critical of the world we live in and realize my voice has power.”
-Mayisha
It was in that classroom that Mayisha began to see teaching as a form of advocacy. She recognized that she wanted to educate those around her in ways that challenge dominant narratives, affirm student identities, and cultivate critical consciousness.
Finding Her Direction as an Undergraduate
At Hunter College, Mayisha double-majored in History and Education while mentoring Student Leadership alumni as a CollegeJourney Peer Leader. Her goal as an educator is to challenge her students to think critically while respecting their lived experiences. She was also actively involved in campus protests, an experience that deepened her commitment to justice and reinforced her belief that education should equip students to understand and engage with the world around them. “Working with students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds shaped my approach,” shared Mayisha, “and reinforced the importance of inclusive curriculum and student-centered pedagogy.”
Peer Leaders host workshop on college resources 
Peer Leaders’ End of Year Celebration 
Planning CollegeJourney workshops
As a Muslim Bengali woman navigating predominantly white academic spaces, Mayisha came to understand imposter syndrome intimately. “I remember moments I didn’t feel like I belonged,” she reflected, “but then I reminded myself that my being here also shapes what belonging looks like.”
Stepping Into the Classroom and Her Calling
Today, Mayisha teaches history at a New York City public school. She creates space in her classroom for students to discuss how policies, government decisions, and current events continue to shape people’s lives and what students can do to create change.
Mayisha is also pursuing her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction at Teachers College, Columbia University, while teaching full-time. Balancing both roles has been demanding but deeply meaningful as her graduate studies and teaching inform one another. She carries with her the moments when she once questioned whether she belonged, using them now to open spaces of knowledge, representation, and diversity for her students.
Earning her master’s degree is a goal she is fighting hard to achieve. When the graduate school application process felt overwhelming, Gabrielle Oliver, Manager of College Persistence at Student Leadership Network, stepped in with steady encouragement and held Mayisha accountable every step of the way. Ermina, a fellow Peer Leader who has since become a close friend, reviewed her personal statements and fiercely championed her potential. Together, they pushed Mayisha to aim even higher and helped her believe she could get there.
Looking back, Mayisha hopes her journey inspires others to see the possibilities ahead. “Trust yourself and take up space in every room you enter,” she constantly reminds her students. “Every step you take, even the ones that feel uncertain, is shaping you and teaching you something you’ll carry forward. Remember that you have space, and you always will. That itself is your power.”
