Keisha Wallace

I originally started my career in engineering, although even in high school and college my jobs were tutoring. I got a degree in industrial systems engineering and then a degree in applied mathematics. I interned for 3 years and then worked full-time at Nissan North America for 1 year, so I worked in the engineering field for a total of about 4 years. When I interned at the National Book Lifestyle, I worked under the engineering director and my primary job was helping him write technical reports, so even though my focus was math and science, writing has been a huge part of my work.

I felt a calling to move into the education field after working in engineering. The engineering background taught me a lot about processing and problem solving, and merging that training and experience with education allows for a higher level of effectiveness in troubleshooting problems that children may be facing and pinpointing areas that need to be strengthened. I've been able to use that engineering mindset to better deliver services and determine areas that need improvement.

I own an educational support company called ACEWALL SCHOLARS, LLC. I started it in 2006 as a nonprofit, and in 2015 we reorganized as a for-profit, so under this company structure it's been about 11 years. We look at education in multiple ways - core curriculum like math, science, English, reading, spelling, and social studies, as well as performing arts including acting, dancing, and music. We also focus on mental wellness in the sense of life coaching and mentorship. We provide summer programming in STEAM - science, engineering, technology, math - and we fill in the arts as well, highlighting writing because I find that lately children are missing some fundamental writing skills. With so many things leaning into technology, and especially now with the introduction of AI, people normally take the path of least resistance, so there are a lot of fundamental skills they're not honing within themselves and relying on technology to provide for them. In our summer programming, we make sure students are getting practice with these skills so they have a level of independence and understanding of how to think critically and apply this to their lives. We also place teachers in schools.

We're launching a learning management system that integrates AI in a way that still allows for proficiency in math, reading, and writing. A lot of kids are using ChatGPT or other AI sources to get work done, but what we do is use our AI to not do the work for the children, but to supplement an environment that helps them become more skillful in these areas. We offer that to schools, but we're also launching an educational marketplace which allows teachers to post courses. You could be a certified K-12 teacher or just a teacher who is proficient in sewing, cooking, or any area in which you have a knowledge set, and you can use our platform to grow your own community and sell your courses. This allows teachers to make residual income, and that was very important to me because going into education, especially when I moved from engineering to education, I was pretty young but I did notice the difference in pay. Teachers put in a lot of hours - you could be at school for 8 hours, but that doesn't account for the 2 or 3 hours you may use in planning and the 3 or 4 hours you may use in grading content and assessing that content to determine how you need to move forward in your courses. Teachers don't get paid for that outside time, and the time they do put in, where the market is in terms of how much a teacher can make, it's not a lot even though it's teachers that train our doctors, lawyers, and engineers. But for some reason they get lost along the way, so one of my goals was to develop a marketplace in which teachers can be making residual income on the courses they create.

I also own a performing arts entity called Keisha Sounds LLC, where I do voiceovers and teach voiceover classes, and I like to merge it with ACEWALL SCHOLARS as much as I can. I also integrate the performing arts piece into my educational work, and writing is a huge part of that for me as well.

My biggest achievement would be developing a mindset to not see boundaries. It's that mindset that has allowed me to create these businesses and have an effect on children's lives that is long-lasting. My achievement is learning how to release any boundaries in which I see education - allowing a tutoring company to morph into a mentoring company, as well as a life coaching company, performing arts company, and learning management company.

What I find most rewarding is being a catalyst of change in someone's life. When I reflect on people who have touched my life and made a difference in the trajectory, I feel grateful and thankful for that because I realize that everything we understand or are able to do in life, someone has taught that to us. If it wasn't for someone putting in that time, there'd be so many things and skills that we wouldn't know. To be at a place and to be used to affect someone's life is not a small thing, that's a huge thing. I'm grateful and thankful that I'm able to be used to make positive change.

My vision for the future with ACEWALL SCHOLARS is to eventually open up a school and really look at the way in which education is delivered and see how I can improve on that so that no learner or student is left behind. Our current education system is really geared toward a certain type of learner. Students can be labeled as ADHD - and not to say that these conditions don't exist - but it's only a problem when you're expecting a learner to retain information a certain way. Education has changed, there's less outdoor time, they even take naps out of classes, many schools don't even give kindergartens naps anymore, and there's less arts incorporated into even technical courses. My goal is to look at how I can revamp the way education is delivered and create an educational institution that is able to reach a broader spectrum of students. For Keisha Sounds, the goal would be to do more sync music - I do voiceovers and create music for projects, it could be movies, commercials, documentaries, or educational things - and see where that leads me.