Over the course of this semester, my views on the homeless community have been significantly widened and I have become a more empathetic person. Growing up in San Bernardino, homeless encounters were a normal thing and I brushed them off without a second thought. Now, I think to myself “this person has a story you don’t know about” with every homeless individual I see. The last time I was walking the streets of Skid Row in LA was about 2 months ago, and I had a new perspective towards the people on the street. I had so much respect for them and took in the diversity around me, while also being saddened because I now know about their displacement and how difficult it is. Being immersed in a social problems makes it go to your heart more, so teaching/showing people these situations can make an impact. I didn’t have someone telling me about homeless life and homeless people in high school, other than they were lazy and would only use any money I gave them to feed an addiction. Kids are impressionable, and need to be told more than one perspective. So for my teaching project, I went to Yucaipa High School and overviewed the 5 main questions we answered over the semester with 2 AP Human Geography classes. I told them alternative reasons to homelessness outside substance abuse, what organizations are doing to help, and that it could happen to anyone. The lesson I hope they took home was do not be quick to judge and do not slander those who need some help. The homeless community faces enough shame, but with every child we can teach to be more tolerant and accepting, the better we can treat one another.