For the last 16 years at Cardozo Education Campus (formerly Cardozo Senior High), Leonel Popol has been selling to students. His product: hope.
Here’s how he does it.
Step one: Plant an idea, a small thought that makes you think you can do something different, or be someone bigger: “I ask students, why don’t you have a dream? They aren’t sure at first. Then they think, he’s right, is it going to hurt me to have a dream?”
Step two: Switch your mindset. “Change the way you think about yourself,” said Mr. Popol, a bilingual counselor and soccer coach. “Then you start thinking that anything is possible.”
Step three: Fail, succeed, and keep moving. “Obviously you need to be realistic and you need to be patient,” he said. “I’m not here to pick you up, but I will assist you, I will tell you to brush it off and keep going. But then you succeed. Then you think bigger than ever before and work in that direction.”
He shared this product to the whole world on Monday, when he was honored as a Latino Educator Champion of Change at the White House. Champions of Change are ordinary Americans honored for doing extraordinary work in their communities. Mr. Popol had the opportunity to meet President Obama and Vice President Biden, who congratulated him on this honor.
"Giving children hope is what being a champion of change really means to me,” Mr. Popol said at the White House.
Marvin Mundo-Hernandez knows how it feels. He arrived in the United States four years ago from El Salvador. Now a senior, he can testify to Mr. Popol’s influence.
At first, Marvin just thought of himself as a student—nothing more. “Then, after some conversations with Mr. Popol, he made me realize that I could become a leader and do something big with my life. “
It went further. “He changed my way of seeing college,” said Marvin. “He made me want to go there. He told me that if I wanted to be somebody, I had to challenge myself and the best way to do it was to go to college.”
Marvin is applying for colleges this fall. He’d like to double major in accounting and business.
He is just one of hundreds of students whose lives have been touched by Mr. Popol, who laughs and shrugs in his humble way when told this fact. “Sometimes students come back and tell me how some piece of advice stayed with them for a long time… and I am very happy but I don’t remember exactly what I had said!”
It helps that Mr. Popol himself has had a path with which many students can identify. He left Guatemala for the United States when he was a young man, with little knowledge of English, and no real dreams except to live in this country.
As a child in Guatemala, he had read and heard about Washington, D.C and was intrigued immediately. He saw pictures of the Lincoln Memorial and dreamed about seeing it one day. Try as he might, even through seven years of dental school in Guatemala, Mr. Popol could not shake this vision. One day, he told his parents that he had bought a one-way ticket to Washington, D.C. His parents were sad, but he has never regretted his decision. And he finally got to see the Lincoln Memorial.
Mr. Popol worked in construction for awhile. But it was his soccer prowess that eventually led him to education. He earned a college degree at the University of Maryland and a master’s at Trinity Washington, taught Spanish and coached soccer in Maryland, and caught the eye of Georgetown University and its Division I women’s soccer team. He became head coach of the Hoyas for six years until 1998, when he decided he wanted something more.
He applied to work at Cardozo, and has not looked back since.
“Being here has given my life a clear purpose I never had. There’s constant growing. I’m a better man because of all I’ve learned from these children from all these years. I want to be the best I can be. I have clarity of intention when you have kids who don’t know how to read and write… and then learn how to do so in both English and Spanish… and then graduate! To see that transformation take place is just amazing,” said Mr. Popol, father of three daughters.
“Graduation day is an unbelievable, euphoric day. When I see students on the stage, we hug and we know what they had to go through to get to this point,” he said.
A close second to graduation day was the day he was honored at the White House. “I had seen the White House when I first arrived in DC, and thought, maybe I will go there one day,” he laughs.
But when he was notified, “The first thing I thought was, I’m being honored? For what? I didn’t do anything to get any recognition….but it feels good,” he said. “I am glad I went there, because it shows my kids that your dreams can come true.”
Said Kiara Gomez, an 11th grader from Honduras who was also at the White House event, “The best part was when he was talking. You could see the excitement on his face and you felt proud of him because you know he deserves it. “
Even still, it is hard to accurately describe the kind of admiration the students feel for Mr. Popol, the hope-giver. When asked about what they would say to him when they leave, they grow quiet. A thoughtful, almost reverent, quiet.
Jose Omar Joya Benitez, an 11th grader from El Salvador said, “Honestly I can’t even put it all into words… He has always helped me with my personal life. He helps the Latino community to keep moving forward.”
Albert Aleman, an 11th grader from El Salvador, agreed. “He always gives me the best advice possible. He tells me to keep getting good grades and stay out of trouble. He has been a man who has guided me to the right path, and I will always thank him. He has been kind of like a father to me.”
Marvin, who arrived not so long ago from El Salvador, now speaks fluent English and acts as a translator for other students. When asked what he wants to tell Mr. Popol, he pauses for a moment, then refuses. He’s not ready.
“I can’t say right now, because I need to think about it. Maybe at the end of the year. Because when I say thank you to him, I want it to be as profound as the impact he had on my life. “