Grateful former student creates scholarship to honor teacher who changed his life

A classroom.
(Image credit: iStock)

Before he met Linda Brandt, Steven Ma didn't care about school — he regularly skipped class and never got an A.

Ma told CBS Sacramento he had been told by one teacher he was "the stupidest student" he had ever seen, leaving him with "no self-esteem, there was no self-dignity." Things changed when he entered Brandt's classroom. She was his 10th grade geometry teacher, and Ma said she pushed him to "see who I was. She made me discover what I could do."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.