Zaniya always knew that she wanted to be a teacher. A self-described teacher’s pet from the start, she always could see the magic in teaching and would share this dream with people she trusted. But well-meaning mentors steered her away: teaching meant being overworked and underpaid. So Zaniya pivoted. She pursued tech internships every summer from age sixteen, enrolled at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and told herself she’d follow the more practical path.
But it never quite clicked.
After a particularly unsatisfying internship at an investment bank, Zaniya went back to that original feeling. She wanted to give teaching the same honest shot she’d given corporate work. A mentor told her about Breakthrough New York.
The summer of 2024, she stepped foot onto the Grace Church Campus in New York City, and felt as if she had been transported to another universe, she says. Zaniya remembers with a smile all of the chants and challenges; how there was never a dull moment. There were also those last-minute lesson changes and learning how to think on her feet. And there were moments of pure, unbridled joy: Teaching Fellows dressing up as vegetables in capes and hats because learning should be fun. “Seeing them laugh, seeing them ooh and aah over our goofy outfits,” Zaniya reflects, “reminded me that you have to be cringey as a teacher, or else you’re not doing it right.”
That summer crystallized something essential for Zaniya: what matters most in a classroom is the climate. “Data and test scores matter. But none of it lands if students don’t feel happy and safe,” she says. That belief, seeded during her Breakthrough summer, now shapes everything about the way she teaches.
Through Breakthrough, she connected with Teach For America and is now teaching 6th Grade Science in her hometown as a 2025 TFA Corps member. She is also enrolled in a teacher certification program at Rutgers Newark. Without Breakthrough, Zaniya says, she wouldn’t be doing this work of such deep purpose.
Zaniya describes teaching as heart work and hard work, “and what matters is that the heart outweighs the hard.” Even on the days she leaves exhausted, she knows she’s in the right place. Breakthrough gave her the summer that made the path ahead clear. It showed her that teaching can be joyful and that she’s a kid at heart – and the most important thing she can do is build a classroom where students feel safe enough to grow.