The future is shaped by the younger generation, and the younger generation is shaped by their teachers. That teacher, whether it’s a man or woman, related to you or not, shapes you for the rest of your life.

Caroline Yeboah is a Chemistry teacher at West Potomac, and she is one of the best teachers you could have to help shape your future. Ms. Yeboah chose to become a teacher through sheer love of teaching. “I want to be able to help students, empower students do anything they think is hard”

Ms Yeboah is inspired by her faith. “My man is Jesus. Jesus? He’s my Superman. Like seriously, my faith is definitely my anchor. And so that’s my go to for anything. For everything in life.”

Her college experience had her teaching herself, because in high school the way she was taught Chemistry wasnt working for her, leading to her not learning much. “I had to hold myself accountable.” She fell in love with chemistry because she was teaching herself, and found how interesting it was. “If I could teach myself, anybody can learn it”

Ms. Yeboah is a former West Potomac student, deciding to teach here since she knows the demographic. She wants to empower her students, especially those who look and are like her. Growing up she didn’t have science teachers that looked like her and she wanted to change that.

When I asked Ms. Yeboah if she thought about teaching something else or even getting a different job and she told me never. She said Marine Sciences is more interesting but less practical. She then went on to tell me she never thought about getting a different job. “No. I was pretty much on point. As to I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Down to the subject.” She went on to tell me she’s been doing this for 15 years. She still wants to do with education, saying that was her true calling. “So I think from the beginning, I knew exactly what to do. Just stick with it for as long as I have.”

Her favorite story from teaching was one time when her student skipped, they called a student who was in class. She said she had a close relationship with her students to get the student to pick up the phone and call him back. “I was like, hello. He’s like, yeah, and I said where are you? He tells me seven eleven and then asks me “Oh,you want something?” I’m like, get your butt over here. It was like, okay, yes, ma’am. I’m coming. I have to catch the bus. That was the end of their skipping. They ended up making it. They didn’t skip the class.” She said she is able to form a relationship with students, even if they just woke up. “ A lot of times at  the end of the day they’ll wake up just to come to my class. I go home and feel very privileged, I appreciate the students and I remember that like it was just yesterday” 

The most valuable thing a student had taught her was when a student graduated and came back. “I see things kind of come full circle. So it’s like seeing the fruits of our labor, always beautiful to see.” One of her students was an absolute goof in class. But he went to the military and came back to see her. She was in complete shock because he had completely turned around. He was the most disciplined person in the room at any moment. “Another one is that  for this student I completely changed my whole teaching style just to accommodate the student because I just wanted to see them be successful. And everyone else made it based on how I changed things. But the student I changed it for, that one student had to repeat the class. I’m like, Are you kidding me? I changed everything for this one kid. Everyone else made it but that one kid they had to repeat the class. But then they graduated after taking my class and I didn’t realize I had any effect or impact. I didn’t realize the extent of the impact until they acknowledged that in their graduation speech. They were the graduation speakers and I thought this girl was angry with me. Because when you fail you fail. I mean, I did everything I could. I flipped over backwards twice. You know, you failed so I failed them. I didn’t feel they should’ve, but that’s what they got. And it wasn’t until they graduated that they acknowledged that I had such a big impact on them. That to me had a huge impact on me, because you got them telling the whole school during graduation. You got the assistant principal, principal, superintendent, you got all this leadership, and your name was mentioned as a teacher. That moment made me realize my impact and made me a crybaby.”

Ms. Yeboah is more conservative in her thoughts about highschool. “And so number one. School has changed a lot over the years, policies have changed. I’m thinking of course if I could summarize it. Get to the point. I’d say things have changed.”

Ms. Yeboah thinks teachers could always take more money in their salary because of the impact they have. “It’s not as bad as it was, not just mine, but in general has gotten better and in Fairfax, we get a pretty good amount. You make more the longer you stay. So it’s not, I wouldn’t say, it’s the stereotypical teachers get no money…. So yeah, I can take a million more dollars”