You wouldn’t expect that a supreme court justice would have grown up as a shy Filipino American Portuguese girl.
But that’s exactly how Tani Cantil-Sakauye describes her fear of public speaking as a youngster.
She credits a dedicated teacher of getting her over hear anxiety.
“How do you know that you can’t do something when you have not lived that long?” Cantil-Sakauye recalls her teacher saying to her.
When Tani started beting the boys in debate, she knew her teacher was on to something. From there law school wasn’t far off and the rest his story.
You can read Tani’s thoughts about the importance of education and teaching students civic engagement early in their student life. She thinks waiting until the senior year of high school to teach civics is too late.
You can read about that in the Contra Costa Times
