LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Iliana Ward was nominated anonymously.

Ms. Ward creates a positive classroom environment in multiple ways. The most prominent is by creating healthy relationships with students and their families. She believes that a student will not care about what she is teaching until they know that she cares about them. Teaching is a part of raising a child. When a student enters the classroom, she automatically becomes apart of their community. She also is an advocate for teaching students how to interact with their peers. These soft skills need to be taught to students because we should not assume they are seeing positive examples in their personal lives. Aspects of interaction, such as speaking when entering a room, holding doors open for one another, and learning to communicate effectively are tools that are just as important as math to teach.