Adams shows hard work will bring you far
Published 5:19 pm Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Rayven Adams has accomplished a lot in her young life. She has trained at NASA and, recently, she traveled to Tanzania where she taught elementary school students.
Adams, a Port Arthur native who is currently a senior at Texas Southern University, has already developed a 10-year plan for her continuing education and offers a message of hope and perseverance to others.
“I’m a product of Port Arthur and was raised in the West Side projects,” Adams said. “I want people to know anything is possible, nothing is out of your reach. I want people to know that a black girl from the West Side has been to NASA and to Africa.”
Adams is pursuing a teaching degree specializing in math and her hard work and dedication has led her near and far. During the summer Adams and two others took part in a five-day professional development institute at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as pre-service STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) teachers.
Funding for the opportunity was provided from NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project.
Her next adventure was a three-week stay in Africa as part of a study abroad program that paid for part of the program. For that she had to qualify based on academic achievements and an interview and essay.
“The first week we settled into Zanzibar where we did research, toured and learned,” Adams said.
Zanzibar is a region in Tanzania and once there she moved on to Mount Moriah Nursery and Primary School where she taught math to fifth to seventh grades.
“Students there have to pay to go to the school,” she said. “Their primary language is Swahili. It was amazing. It makes you appreciate what you have here.”
Certain things that are normal in the U.S., such as having clean drinking water, were a luxury there, Adams reported. In addition, there was no TV but she did have an iPad and some places had wi-fi.
But the beauty of the continent wasn’t lost on Adams.
“It’s winter (as it is below the Equator) there but it feels like our spring time,” she said. “The scenery was very beautiful, especially the sunsets. People come there to see the sunsets.”
Adams was able to go to a game park where animals roamed free and witnessed a Tanzanian wedding at her hotel, which was beautiful she said.
While the U.S. has stray dogs, Africa has monkeys. She recalled a time she was outside eating and the tree above her began to shake — it was the monkeys, which roam the streets the way stray dogs do in America.
Adams has mapped our her future, step by step.
“After graduation from college I’ll go right back for my masters. I want to be teaching in three years which is normally how long one must teach to become a principal,” she said. “And since I went to NASA I want to go back, work there for two to three years, then began work on my doctorate. I have a 10-year plan. Master’s, PhD, Africa, NASA, principal.”
Teaching is one thing she has wanted to do since she was in the first grade. As for where she will teach, that is up to God.
“I’m doing this because I want people to know it can be done,” she said. “I grew up in Joe Louis Apartments and was eventually adopted. I want people to know- yes it can be done.”
Rayven Adams is the daughter of Akilah Lewis and the granddaughter of Port Arthur City Councilman Willie “Bae” Lewis.