Most parents don’t expect their five-year-olds to be taught by Latino male military vets.

That was a lesson I learned quickly when I began teaching kindergarten more than a decade ago. At nearly every training I attended and parent-teacher night my school hosted, eyes widened as they took in the only man in the room full of early childhood educators.

As a result, I had to work extra hard to build trusting relationships with my students and their parents. I needed to prove to parents that, first and foremost, I cared about their kids.

That meant a lot of hard work for me in the beginning. It wouldn’t do to approach meetings and interactions with students and parents based on a few notes in my kids’ files and general ideas I had in my head about the people my students were and the places they came from. I had to truly get to know them as individuals, and when I did, I found people and stories that were richer and more diverse than I could have imagined.

I think about this a lot when I reflect on the challenges low-income students face today. When I taught kindergarten, nearly all my students were Latino and every one of them received free or reduced-price lunch. I’m now a leadership director overseeing 10 schools with 5,000 students of similar demographics. That means ensuring that 5,000 kids with 5,000 unique identities but common challenges get the education they deserve.

In today’s education system, that’s no small task. Across the country, low-income students achieve in school at lower rates than their more affluent counterparts. However, that is not a reflection of ability or will. It is the result of a system that for far too long has used generalized conceptions about people of income brackets to decide what’s possible for their futures before they are even old enough to tell us about their dreams for themselves.

My eyes were first opened to this reality in a course on social justice at Wash. U. Unapologetically bursting the Wash. U. bubble, the class pulled back the curtain on the systemic injustices that can make life immensely complicated for people who live in poverty. I had grown up in a community just like the one I was studying, and the more I learned, the more convinced I became that these were the communities I wanted to serve.

I had always felt a call to service, starting with my time in the Marine Corps post-high school. After wrapping up active duty and going back to school to get my degree from Wash. U., serving high-need students through Teach For America felt like a natural fit. Since my first day teaching kindergarten, to my work as a principal and now as a regional director in charge of 10 schools, the urgency and passion I feel for this work has only grown.

There are many ways to be a part of the change you envision. When it comes to big investment and rewards, teaching is tough to beat as long as you are willing to do the work. This spring, my first class of kindergarteners is graduating from high school and I look forward to attending many a commencement and graduation party circuit, thanks to their invites. Knowing that I played a small role in their paths to and beyond that commencement stage is something I am looking forward to.

As Wash. U. students and alumni, we’ve enjoyed countless opportunities to reach our potential. Let’s make sure the kids that come after us do, too.

Eduardo Sindaco is a 2003 Wash. U. alumnus. He began teaching as a Teach For America corps member in Houston and now works as a regional director in Oklahoma City Public Schools.