Growing up in a single-parent home and in the inner-city has had a great impact on John Marshall High School senior Detajha Woodson. She said her background and upbringing has helped to shape her into the strong and ambitious student she is today. “My mother didn’t attend a four-year college, viagra ” Detajha said. “My great grandmother dropped out of school in the eighth grade. So, abortion it’s really important to me that I complete high school and that I attend college just so that I can say that I’ve done something that they haven’t. And, they always say that they want me to do better than them so I try.”
Detajha’s great-grandmother, Annie Hayes, owns a daycare center where Detajha also helps out. She said that her great-grandmother has served as her greatest inspiration because she brought herself up through adversity and her enormous generosity. “I feel like my grandmother is like the glue to my family,” Detajha said. “I feel like she holds everybody together … She’s willing to do anything and everything for everybody. She literally will take the clothes off of her back and give them to somebody else. I hope to be as great as she is one day.”
She also looks to her mother, Charryse Woodson, for motivation as well. “I feel like my mother has probably been one of my biggest motivations. So I’d like to make a better life for her and myself.”
It’s because of her great-grandmother, mother and being surrounded by children a lot that Detajha wants to go into the field of family or child psychology. She wants to work with children because she said she thinks they’re a vital part of society and oftentimes are overlooked because of their age. “I just really admire children. I feel like children have value and a lot to say, but some people don’t really take the time to listen to them because they’re children,” Detajha said. “So as a child psychologist, it would give them the opportunity to say what they feel and give them the attention that they may not receive.”
Detajha plans to study the subject at one of her top three choices for college which include: American University in Washington, D.C., Temple University and the University of Virginia. If she is successful in graduating college, she would be the first in her family to do so. She also wants to attend graduate school after receiving her bachelor’s degree, though she has not determined where yet.
However, before she can plan for the future she must stay focused on the present. Detajha is currently highly involved in both her school and the community. She has volunteered in many community events such as the Special Olympics, Sister Annie’s Daycare (her grandmother’s daycare center) and the Redskins Foundation. She is also a very dedicated student. Laura E. Ramsay, English Department chairperson at John Marshall High School, describes Detajha as very mature and respectful. “She is a fierce debater with the ability to think critically about issues of social justice.”
