Always Learning: Annie Davis
Annie Davis and her family were recruited from Louisiana to Fort Wayne more than 30 years ago. During her career, she has taught at Memorial Park, Bunche, and Southern Heights (Levon Scott) elementary schools until she switched to teaching middle school in 1999. When she got ready to retire, she decided she wasn’t entirely ready to leave education.
“As I reflected on being a student-learning advocate and teaching ELL (English language learners) and special education, I thought about everything I had learned from my students. I decided I wanted to do something that reflected the foundational parts of education. By the time you get to middle school, if you don’t have some of those basic skills, you get left behind. So I decided to start the Solid Foundation Learning Center, focusing on K–5 education in a small group setting. The small group setting is especially important for kids with learning difficulties. It allows you to meet their individual needs.”
To strengthen her leadership skills, Annie participated in the 2022 Sonder Fellowship. The Sonder Fellowship is a leadership training program for BIPOC leaders, by BIPOC leaders, that are living, working, or serving in Southeast Fort Wayne.
As part of their leadership training, Sonder Fellows do a lot of reflective work to better understand themselves and how they show up in leadership settings. “When I think back on my younger self, I knew I would be a teacher, but I wouldn’t have imagined I’d be the CEO of a nonprofit,” said Davis. “Participating in Sonder was interesting because it taught me a lot of things I wish I knew in my twenties, thirties, and so on. It feels like I’m finally coming into my own at 65. I’m a work in progress, but I like where I am, and I feel like I’m just getting started. This is my season to focus on me and the goals I have for myself, while still doing the thing I love, which is to teach.”
“I have been the most challenging part of my leadership journey,” Annie jests. “I was considered a bossy, know-it-all type. After being told that a lot growing up, and as I got older and started working, I would stay in the background most of the time because I was worried about offending or appearing like I was trying to take over. So I would sit in a room with tons of people, and never say 10 words, even though I knew the answers. I’ve held myself back because of that.”
After the Sonder Fellowship, Davis feels she has a better understanding of herself, and her community. “It’s not that I didn’t understand my community necessarily, but I didn’t understand my role in it as much. I was a teacher, and I thought that was my sole contribution. Now, I see how we are a community working within a community, and when we unite, we’re better. The more we collaborate, the more we work together, the better our community is going to be. We are not divided—we have the same goal, and different ways of getting there, but the same goal.”