Support Tatisha on the journey to Dr. McKay!

My name is Tatisha McKay, and I am a proud Wheaton Posse Alumni and educator who just ended her 7th year teaching elementary school. I am incredibly pleased to share that I have successfully completed my first 4/260 weeks of my Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction program at Boston College. Haha we have a long way to go!

As a first-generation doctoral student from the Bronx, NY, I wanted to reach out to the community to ask for your help. While pursuing my PhD I will not be able to have a full-time job so that I can commit to my studies. If you would, please consider helping me by either donating to my gofundme, or passing my gofundme along to someone else who may be able/ willing to help, I would be forever grateful! No donation is too small and no contribution, no matter what type, will go unnoticed.

Reasoning behind "why" a PhD

Laat school year, I taught 4th grade and found myself increasingly frustrated by the lack of representation of the minority population in the curriculum. For example, in a unit I taught about Poetry, the curriculum tasked my students with researching the motivation of 4 famous poets. ¾ of the poets were White, and one was Black. ¾ were also male and one was female. While the poets were great, I felt like the poets limited my students' knowledge of who can and does write poetry. In a world with Latinx poets, Black poets, Filipino poets, female poets, poets who identify as members of the LGBTQ community, etc. ALL students should have the opportunity to learn about the fantastic work done by a variety of people in the world (especially people that look like them, because representation does matter.) Education is one way we can combat all of the hate in this world, and we can’t do that if the curriculum offered to students tells a single story about one kind of person; this is why I decided to pursue this degree.

Fulfilling this dream is very important to me because ALL of our children, regardless of race, gender, ability and/or disability, have the right to learn about people that look like them to help motivate them and to create and live out their BIGGEST dreams. Representation matters; it matters so much that I need this degree to fulfill a bigger vision of creating a more inclusive and transformative curriculum in the future. Our children deserve better in school; they deserve to learn about people who look like them AND people who don’t look like them. Our students deserve better, and I want to make sure that happens.

Now that you know a little about me and why this work is so important to me, I hope you will consider donating or contributing in some way. As stated before, no contribution is too small, nor will it go unnoticed. I appreciate you!