The story behind FIL Learning

Hello! My name is Kimberly Guevara, CEO and Founder of FIL Learning. Get ready to learn a ton about me and my vision behind FIL Learning.

I began my childhood in Aurora, Colorado. I do not remember much from my pre-k experience, but what I do remember is that my teachers were very nice women. I moved to Northeast Denver, Colorado and began my 1st-3rd grade experience at my first elementary school. Unfortunately, I left this first school because I did not feel that the teachers nor the students cared for my education. In 4th grade, I transferred to my third school, and I felt like I learned and grew so much that I was offered to skip a grade and begin learning with older students. Unfortunately, my family was no longer able to make the half hour drive to school every morning, so I transferred to my fourth school. At my fourth school, I began schooling at a charter school where my teachers began to show great care for my education, and it made me appreciate my school attendance.

Continuing to my middle school education, as a growing woman, I was unfortunately faced with many of society's expectations which caused me to question every aspect about myself. This led to drastic changes in my apperance and self esteem which became an easy target for bullying. After a week of beginning eigth grade, I decided to transfer schools once again. After my fifth school, I finally got it right. This school's mission was to empower student learning, to show students that they are worth a phenomenal education and so much more. Based on solely their mission, I knew that my experinece would be a different one. I met teachers who cared about how I learned, they showed me how to learn based on my needs and my wants. This was the start of a new era, and I felt it.

Once again, I continued my educational endeavors and began high school with a new persective, becuase I was at a school that cared for my edcuation as a student, becuase my teachers were passionate about teaching me. I began participating in multiple school clubs and athletic events, so much that I was recognized for my achievements by the school. In my junior year of high school, I was the student with the highest GPA, but I can say for certain that if it was not for my passionate teachers, I would not have gotten to that point. There were two teachers who saw that I was a student who wanted to much out of my education, so they gave me resources to continue my learning and opened their office hours for me to ask more in depth questions about the subjects I was learning. They helped me spark insterest in every aspect of my learning, even if it was sometimes redundant. These two teachers later helped me through the college application process as a first generation student. They helped me see my worth as a student, fall in love with my learning, and apply for over eighty scholarships. Out of all of the scholarships I applied to, I recieved the one with the greatest reward: The Boettcher Scholarship which is a full ride scholarship to any college or university in the state of Colorado.

My high school experience was filled with learning. I continued this learning at my dream school, the University of Denver, and coming to DU made me realize something very important. I realzied that I was one of the few students from a low income area, a person of color, and a person who grew up and went to public schools made it to college. I learned that I was a student at an affluent, prodiminantly white institution, and many students had already fallen in love with their learning. Accepting this fact was devastating, so much that I knew I needed to create a change for students who came from my background. I wanted to see more faces that looked like mine achieving as many great accomplishments as the majority. That is when I knew it was time to start FIL Learning.

After the course of what seemed like forever, I started FIL Learning with Hector Rodriguez, a first generation Mexican-American student, and a dear friend of mine. We began this company becuase we wanted to help students fall in love with their learning as much as we did. I knew that no matter who, no matter the background, as long as there are teachers who are caring and are willing to learn about children on a personal, but professional level, there is a great opportunity for growth. I am passionate about FIL Leanring, about teaching with a care for each student, so that I will help close the education and opportunity gaps students in learning.

Thank you for learning a little bit about me! Our next article will be about FIL Learning and our mission, as well as a cool article about types of learning. Stay Tuned!