Growing up in Jamaica, Dwaynna Ramsay wanted to be a pharmacist. She excelled in school, and set her sights on college to continue on the career path she dreamed of.
She was accepted into a couple of different schools, but money was tight, and Ramsay said she deferred her dream so she could work and earn money.
“I never stopped believing that learning was my key out,” Ramsay said on Tuesday’s TownTalk.
She certainly isn’t the only person to tell a similar story, and she won’t be the last. But, as a teacher today in Vance County Schools, she wants her students to hear her message: Your struggles do not define who you are.”
And that was the message she delivered in Atlanta last month in her commencement address during last month’s graduation exercises for Western Governor’s University, when she received her master’s degree in education technology and instructional technology.
Ramsay’s path is different than the one she had envisioned when she was a high school student in Jamaica, but it is a path that has her inspiring students to keep their sights on their goals and dreams and to believe in themselves.
In 2021, her husband, Kemar Morgan, took a job in Warren County Schools. He is a CTE teacher and has classes in brick masonry and construction math.
And that’s when her association with Vance County Schools began, with Ramsay becoming a permanent substitute at Vance County Middle School.
She acknowledged the “culture shock” and said the job taught her to be patient. It wasn’t easy, but she persevered. “Every day I kept going back,” she explained, and it wasn’t too long before she was invested in her students’ lives.
“Once you get to know that and understand their challenges, you realize they need a ‘constant,’” Ramsay said. “Yes, the grades do matter, but we have to be that ‘constant’ in their lives.”
So when kids fail tests or don’t do homework or get off track in some other way, they can count on Ramsay saying, “I’m going to believe you can do it until you can believe you can do it.”
The young people she connects with in school demonstrate a variety of aptitudes that they simply haven’t recognized or tapped into, she said.
During her speech to her fellow graduates, she offered a tip of the mortarboard to Dr. Stephanie Ayscue, who Ramsay said decided to give her a chance.
“She was not only a leader, but my mentor,” she said later. “She was always so encouraging. I want to be someone like that, not just for students but for anyone who encounters me,” she said during TownTalk.
Her path may not have been a straight one, and it certainly was strewn with challenges and obstacles to overcome. But scholarships came through to pay for tuition – more than once – and Ramsay said her faith buoyed her when she lacked the energy to keep up with family, work, and school.
One low point came when she failed a test – she never failed tests, she said. After a couple of weeks of feeling sorry for herself, some words of encouragement from her husband and a dream that she said she could recall word for word the next day, something changed.
“I got up and studied a little harder and actually passed with almost 100 percent,” Ramsay said. “The second and third exams, they were pretty hard, but I aced them, too.”
“If you fail something right now, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be forever,” Ramsay said. It’s what she told herself then and it’s what she shares with her students now.
“You own your failure. It’s ok to fall down,” she said. Remember, your struggles don’t define your value.
Find Ramsay’s speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj4Cy82ZC1M
CLICK PLAY!
