Inspiring students starts one classroom at a time. Some very special elementary school students got an experience unlike any other this week when their teacher took them to his graduation from Johns Hopkins University

Alejandro Diasgranados teaches at Aiton Elementary in Northeast Washington DC. Diasgranado managed to raise $2,000 for the trip to take them to his graduation. The effort toward inspiring students received national attention when local news WUSA9 picked up the event.

However, the effort toward inspiring students will go well beyond a feel good story that got covered on the news. Diasgranados commented:

It’s not just a field trip. I think it’s an entire experience where they will be able to see their first graduation and see someone walking across the stage that looks like them. So we made caps and gowns so they could experience what it feels like to graduate. When they put on those gowns, it wasn’t just construction paper anymore. It was their hopes and dreams.

Those students took those caps and gowns to Baltimore to see Diasgranados get his Master of Science in Education.

Here was their reaction when he walked across the stage:

The students greeted him with hugs outside with expressions of pure joy, excitement, and love. The beauty of this story is that Diasgranados understands the emotional power of inspiring students to succeed in education. His example shows them degrees are cool, that knowledge is real, and that degrees can help people live better lives.

Why Inspiring Students Matters

By taking his students to the Johns Hopkins graduation, Diasgranados shows that he expects his students to be able to do the same some day. Their job is to let their imaginations free to explore what success looks like and define it for themselves.

And when it comes to inspiring students and learning the fundamental principles of reading and education, there’s no better way to live it than by example!