Marcia Frater

I attribute my success to my upbringing and my backstory, particularly losing my father at a young age. My father was a strict person who believed in education and highly valued it. I remember there were days he would come in from work, and then at least he would give me some time together - we would do homework together, we would do something together. I thought at one point he wanted me to live his dream, and then after he passed, my mother continued. It was the fear in my mother's eyes and the words from my father that resonate with me. Her greatest desire was for us to, in Jamaica I would say, get past the worst - not being stagnant, but she wanted all of us to grow. The fear in her eyes, where I knew then I had no choice but to suit her desire and do what I needed to do to get going. I had no choice then, and I have no regrets in making the decisions that I have made in becoming a teacher. My mother is my biggest cheerleader, and when my father passed on, she gave me a book as a gift. I remember I stopped talking, and she brought the book to me as a reference point for me to put all my burden in the book, and that book fueled my creativity. Presently, I'm a creative writer.

The best advice I always hear is that you belong. There was a social worker who retired the other day, and I remember her bringing that same thing up last Saturday. It's a case where you just know that you belong. Wherever you are, you just consider and let it resonate that you belong. You belong in that group, you belong in that organization, just know that you belong. And that is quite satisfying for me.

Serve passionately, serve with purpose, and do the best you can. It's not going to be easy, it's never a walk in the park. But when you're serving purposefully and with intention, then that kind of minimizes the challenges that you might encounter. So you have to have a passion, you have to have a love for what you do, because financially, it does not necessarily reward you the way it should. Mentally, it can be exhausting, but as you serve purposefully and passionately, try to find that balance so at least you can be your ultimate self and things don't get overwhelming for you. Whilst you're doing your job, you're also embracing who you are and growing beyond the horizon.

The biggest challenge is navigating bureaucratic policies, and it's the truth - serving as a woman of color, you are confronted with a lot of stereotypical biases that are basically cultivated based on how you talk, your accent, because we can tell my accent is very much strong, and I don't decide or intend to change it. So those are barriers that you are faced with - persons just look at you. And it is something that I have experienced firsthand, so I'm not living anybody's experience. For me, it's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity, because that keeps me knowing the environment that I'm in and it cultivates that sense of purpose. Because there's always going to be persons who are doubting what you do, but as a person, it keeps me aligned to my goals and my purpose here, which - and I say it all the time - my purpose for teaching is children. So when I come to work, it's because of my students. Whatever I put in, whatever I pour in, this is as a result of my students, because I'm always a mother first. And I see most of these students - immigrant, non-immigrant, native, whatever we categorize them as - they are my students at the end of the day, and I have a responsibility to ensure that I fulfill my mandate as a teacher. So those challenges, I use them as opportunities.

My most important values are respect, transparency, accountability, honesty, and integrity. We have to have a moral compass that guides our day-to-day action. The number one for me is respect. You don't necessarily have to like me as a person, but respect that's a common ground for us, respect.