Local StoriesSeptember 15, 2025

Simene’ Walden on Life, Lessons & Legacy

Local Stories

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Simene’ Walden. Check out our conversation below.

Simene’, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
The most recent moment that made me laugh and feel proud is when I delivered a presentation at the 9th Annual International Conference on Education and Multimedia in Osaka, Japan.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Simene’ Walden, also known as The Student Teacher is an Educator, Top Youth Speaker, & New Teacher Consultant. Simene’ is an International Speaker & International Amazon Best Selling Author. Simene’ is a 2024 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient and an Honorary Doctoral of Education Candidate.

Simene’ released her first prayer single “Exalted” on February 21, 2022 under the direction and production of Todd Dulaney and DulanyLand Music.

Simene’ has been recognized as a distinguished educator for the last decade of her twenty + years in public education providing an excellent education to students in underserved urban and rural communities.

Simene’ is committed to helping educators and leaders see their worth beyond their work and their impact and influence beyond instruction to help produce a community of high performing and high-valued individuals who desire to make a difference within their sphere of influence.

Simene’ is currently hosting her second school tour called “Saving Our Children School Tour” for the 2025- 2026 School Year focusing on Social Emotional Learning, Character Education, Building Healthy Relationships, and Trauma Informed Care and Instruction.

Simene’ started a prayer call in 2016 on Sunday nights to pray for the academic system. She began Facebook Lives in January of 2017 praying and believing in God for the Academic System Monday- Friday at 7:00 AM EST. It yielded many testimonies of God’s faithfulness and mercy within the school systems. From that call and lives, she wrote her first book for the academic system.

During the 2017-2018 school year, there were 50,123 and counting students and educators covered in prayer because other believers partnered with The Student Teacher to adopt a school and pray for them. Simene’s goal for the 2023-2024 school year was 500,000 students, families, and adults covered. For the 2025 – 2026 school year, Simene’s goal is to cover 1 million students and educators in prayer.

To date, Simene’ has published seven books, three anthologies, created and released two digital magazines, one print magazine, and have been a co-author in three additional anthologies, one featuring Les Brown. Her newest anthology “The Stones Get Lighter: Navigating Life When Things Get Heavy & Hard” is launching September 20, 2025.

She is the visionary behind The Heart of a Teacher, Pretty Healed and Handsomely Whole, and Beauty Beyond The Bruises.

Simene’ will continue to provide platforms for men and women to share their stories who have been silenced for years due to guilt, shame, embarrassment, or fear as she continues to do the same with her own story in all of its transparency and vulnerability.

You can often hear Simene’ saying, “Before I take my testimony back, I’ll add more to it'”.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
When I think about purpose, I think about the intention of something. People pleasing, going with the status quo, and not doing or saying things because of the small, yet massive spirit of fear telling me this or that will happen without actually knowing that to be true, has served it’s purpose in my life. I had to learn what fear was so I could recognize it in others as well as in myself when it showed up. Once I recognized it, I knew not to listen to that person or that thought when it wanted to invade my mind.

It was in my childhood that my confidence and self esteem was robbed and I spent the bulk of my life trying to find my way. I was hoping people would like me and not leave me. Hoping they would love me genuinely and not hurt me. So with my smart self, I would study people so I could do the things they liked in order for them to like me and want to stay in my life. But it cost me. It cost me ME! I was trying to please people whose purpose was the come into my life and leave after a season. They weren’t meant to be there forever. There was nothing I could do or say that would have otherwise changed it because that was their purpose.

I was trying to please people who weren’t’ even pleased with themselves. I was listening to people who weren’t even living out what they were teaching, preaching, and speaking. Social media had me thinking I was losing in life when I actually wasn’t. I was right on course for my life.

In 2025, people pleasing has ended and being afraid of what others think about the one life I have to live is over. The only person I care to please now is me and the only one I have to answer to is my Lord and Savior. As long as God is pleased and has given me the power and permission to do, I am good with that. He has sent and will continue to send those who align with what He has for me to accomplish and He will continue to station people right where I need them at just the right time.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
It was between 2015-2016 when I enrolled into a class called “All Things New” at First Baptist Church Glenarden, in Upper Marlboro, Maryland where I finally understood the power of my story and the true power of my words. I spent 18 months in that bible study talking through my traumas, childhood pains, and the adult issues I had been facing for so long but had no answers or solutions for. It was in that class I learned how to share my story. I had to work through all the painful moments with my mentor Dr. Rhonda Cotton many times full of tears, shame, and embarrassment. It truly was more than I wanted to bear, but with her help and encouragement, I kept going.

When I got strong enough to share my story publicly, something supernatural happened. I became empowered when I shared those same stories that used to muzzle me and keep me bound. I found strength in standing before people to proclaim what I had gone through and made it out on the other side to tell them about.

After numerous petitions from people who would come up to me asking for a copy of my testimony once they heard me speak, I started to see that there was something even greater in what I was sharing. People would come up to me to either thank me for sharing my story or they felt compelled to open up about their own story with tears in their eyes thanking me all over again.

When I saw how it moved others to take action, I no longer stopped hiding what had kept me hidden for so long, but I would boldly share my story. It started in that class but has spread far and wide to ministries, schools, organizations, and online.

There has been a phrase that leaped into my heart some years ago and I live by it now. “Pain, Pay Me”. I now share my pain in books, magazine articles, interviews, on podcast, during presentations, motivational talks, sermons, and in professional developments. The bonus is I get to help others do the same now by providing a platform for them to either share their story in written form or verbally through the same means I share my own.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I always say, “My real friends know my status before I ever post”. The term friend has been used very casually in the last decade but my closest friends know genuine connections matter to me. They know it matters to me whether it is a family connection, career connection, ministry connection, acquaintance or solid friendship. They know integrity and honestly really matter to me. They know my relationship with Christ is upmost important to me and they know I genuinely want to please God, enjoy life, and connect with that one who will be my happily ever after.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
I have been promoted to roles in my career that were more of a headache than an accomplishment. There have been people whether it was a platonic or an intimate relationship that did not satisfy me once I became connected to them. In some cases, it was more stressful, painful, and hurtful more times than I wanted to admit while being connected to them. I have received awards that were self nominated while others were given to me but once I received them, it did not satisfy me. It did not even help elevate me to the next place as I hoped.

I have accomplished things in my business and in ministry that did not satisfy me once I received them. Certain clients can become arduous to work with and when you think of the hassle it takes to to deal with them, you realize the money is not even worth it. Speaking on certain stages and collaborating with certain people that are not who they say they are, can be so disappointing and a very dissatisfying experience.

I thought accomplishing more and doing more would get me to where I wanted to go sooner and that has not been the case. What really satisfies me is who I am becoming. My ultimate satisfaction comes from knowing that I am loved and chosen by God and I am loved and accepted by me. The arm of flesh will fail us but God never will.

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Image Credits
Hampton Conway, III, FlashFocus Photography, JJoycePhotography LLC

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