Toni Strak

I attribute my success to tenacity and the support of my kids. It took me 24 years to earn my associate's degree. There were plenty of opportunities along the way to decide it was taking too long or that I should just give up, but I kept going.

That is why I believe so strongly in never saying, "I can't." The minute you convince yourself that you can't do something, you've already put a barrier in your own way. It might take longer than you planned. You might have to change directions, start over, or find a completely different way to get there, but taking a long time to accomplish something does not make it any less of an accomplishment.

My path has taught me that success does not have to happen on anyone else's timeline. Keep going until you get there.

Never give up, and never assume that choosing one career means there is only one way to do it. There might be 1,400 different branches of that one thing, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out which branch is yours.

I always thought being a teacher meant working in a traditional school and standing in front of a classroom every day. I eventually learned that teaching can happen almost anywhere. You can teach in schools, treatment facilities, nonprofits, community programs, one-on-one settings, or places you never would have considered when you first chose the profession.

You have to be willing to explore until you find your niche and the place where what you are good at meets what people actually need. Sometimes changing direction does not mean you gave up on what you originally set out to do. It means you figured out what it can look like for you.

Never, ever, ever diminish yourself so much that you become too miserable to be the person you set out to become in the first place.

Resources, especially funding. There's just not enough money put into in education, especially these days. No matter the educational setting, it seems like we're constantly being asked to stretch a dollar further than it can reasonably go. Teachers and other direct-service professionals are underpaid, and the problem becomes even more apparent when you're working with people society tends to forget, ignore, or hide away: immigrants and undocumented people, underserved communities, foster children, people receiving mental health services, people with disabilities, incarcerated people, and others whose needs are too often treated as though they aren't worth investing in.

The people doing this work frequently end up filling those gaps out of their own pockets, with their own time, and sometimes at the expense of their own well-being. We need more sustainable funding, both public and private, that actually reaches the people receiving services and the people providing them. And we need to recognize that supporting educators and human-service professionals also means giving them the resources, time, and ability to care for themselves. You can't build sustainable systems by continually exhausting the people holding those systems together.

Individuality, personal responsibility, and genuineness are probably the values that matter most to me. I believe people should be able to be who they actually are instead of constantly trying to become whatever someone else expects them to be. I value people who are genuine, even when that means they do not fit neatly into what is considered typical or expected.

At the same time, individuality comes with personal responsibility. Being true to yourself does not mean ignoring how your choices affect other people. It means knowing who you are, taking ownership of your decisions and mistakes, and being willing to grow without losing yourself in the process. That is something I try to carry into both my work and my personal life.