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Throughout each academic year, Worthing High School math teacher Michael Judge mixes his algebra lessons with stories about his journey into the classroom, rising from meager beginnings in Galveston to become one of Houston ISD’s top-performing teachers.

Judge recalls how he took cold showers as a kid when his parents could not afford to pay bills, how his best childhood friend landed on drugs and in prison, how he charted a better path through education. By interspersing his experiences with exponential functions and quadratic equations, Judge hopes to reach students from similar roots in Houston’s Sunnyside community, one of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods.