The reason why I started Geek Girl Strong, I was watching them go through all of the

changes that someone goes through between sixth grade and eighth grade, which if you

think about it, that's a baby into a teenager. So especially for my students who are being raised

as young girls and young women, I would watch them go from a kid who maybe didn't understand

to order it. Would run in PE, would play kickball with all these things, and all of a sudden

it seemed as if they, and didn't seem as if I remember this too, like they had to choose.

All right, what kind of girl am I going to be? Am I going to be a tomboy who still doesn't

care about getting changed and sweating and active in front of the other kids? Am I going

to be bookish in about grades? And, you know, I'll get changed, but I'm not doing any

of this moving stuff. I just want my good grade. I just want a good grade. I'm not getting

an unprepared, but that's it. That's all you're getting to the kid who's like, Miss, I don't

sweat. Yeah, the glam diva. Yes, exactly. It's the one who's just like, I'm about people,

I'm about being seen. Yes. I'm like, and which one are you going to be? Yeah. Yeah. And as I

think, especially because I was teaching towards the end of my teaching career, I was teaching

a lot of black and brown kids in Washington Heights who were either immigrants themselves

or first generation. And I am on my mother's side, my mom's Jamaican. So as a 20-something

year old at the time, I'm under 55. I'm a black woman. I don't come from a lot of money.

And I would share some of my story with them. And I'm also a PE teacher, which like, you

know, I'm a very unassuming PE teacher. No one would know. Because of the stereotypes

that we have of what a PE teacher is like. Yes, like the Mean Girls PE teacher. Exactly.

100%. Don't have sex and you're going to die. You're going to die. I'm usually an overweight

white man who like had my heyday in high school. And now I'm here because I hate everything

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