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Hi. My name is Matinga Ragatz, and I'm the Michigan Teacher of the Year. I'm here to
tell you about my favorite teacher--actually, my favorite two teachers. In the time where
women were told they couldn't, my mother became the very, very first woman to graduate college
from her country. The country was Equatorial Guinea, a small country in equa--in West Africa.
She became a teacher and that is why I'm a teacher today. The second person that really,
really enforced my life was my father, and he taught me that perseverance is the only
way to succeed. And today, I would have not been here without them. And the teacher doesn't
necessarily have to be a person in the classroom. One of them was my mother. She was in the
classroom and she was tough. I'm glad she was never my real teacher, but she taught
me some lessons in life that brought me today to where I am. My father was not in the classroom,
but he taught me some of the very, very important characteristics of life which is to persevere
and keep fighting.