Pauline Vogl is the Program Manager & Lead for Environment Employee Engagement at Cisco and a longtime Citizen Teacher in our California schools.

In one of Pauline’s earliest Carbon Footprint apprenticeships a few years ago, a “teeny tiny” 7th grader named Evias caught her eye. In the beginning, he was more on the quiet side but otherwise totally engaged, and by the end of the apprenticeship, he was participating more and answering tough questions with ease. Evias had improved so much and did so well that Pauline selected him to be the class ambassador for the WOW! presentation at the end of the semester. 

At the WOW!, Pauline watched with joy as Evias’ father took countless photos of his eldest son “even more so than the other parents”. Also in attendance were Evias’ mother and six younger siblings, all dressed in matching tracksuits and excited to take more photos with Pauline included. In this interaction, Pauline noticed Evias’ parents didn’t speak any English or Spanish, but rather a totally different language.

A bit later into the event, a Teaching Fellow pulled Pauline aside to tell her Evias and his family’s story: they came to the United States only 18 months ago as refugees from the Syrian conflict and none of them knew any English. When Evias came to the school as a 5th grader, he had struggled a bit since no one at the school spoke his language. He then joined Citizen Schools as a 6th grader and within a year, was speaking English perfectly. 

“He did not have an accent when I got him that following year. If it hadn’t been for Citizen Schools, helping him with his homework, learn the language, work with him--he worked hard but they worked hard with him--I really don’t think that in that short period of time, he would’ve been as far as he was.”

In fact, he had come so far that by the time Pauline met Evias as a 7th grader in her class, she and her fellow Citizen Teachers had no idea he wasn’t born here. 

“When he came to my class, he picked up so much stuff and learned all these new words, and none of us knew what his background was or that he was brand new to the United States and the language. This child came to a new country and 18 months later was able to be an ambassador for one of our WOWs? I mean that’s amazing! The other thing is, he was so little. He was teeny tiny but he was so strong. He was a leader, a quiet leader and just had a great outlook--he was awesome.”