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No man is an island, pay it forward, and those little fruit snacks from Costco.

This is to say support comes in all shapes and sizes. Everybody needs it. Nobody is completely self-sufficient (no matter what they may claim!), and it is human nature to depend on each other. Sometimes support is given, and other times it’s received. It works both ways, and can be anything from good advice, to a kind word, or even just a well-timed Costco run.

3:01 a.m.

Awake. Sleep is overrated. Have nothing to do in morning anyway…except run a half marathon. Literally.

3:04 a.m.

Pep talk fails. Darkness. Stillness. Excitement. Nerves. Alarm set for 4:15 a.m.

4:00 a.m.

Ignore alarm. Get out of bed instead. Shower with reasonable belief in its energizing effects.

“I hated it.”

“I had ‘joined the workforce,’” says Gabe Moreno. “The story that you’re told you’re supposed to do. You go to college, you get your degree, you join a company . . . and it was awful. It was not where I wanted to be. I dreaded going into work every day.”

Would you walk a mile for $10,000? No, this is not a rhetorical question.

Alesa Weiskopf’s answer was a resounding yes, but she needed at least 99 other people to say yes, too. Spoiler alert: mission accomplished.

ACE 22 graduate Mary Grace Mangano currently teaches English at Cristo Rey New York High School. In this fourth installment of Teachers Helping Teachers, Mary Grace highlights a technique she uses to keep all students engaged in classroom dialogue: “rotating discussions”.