11 Moments That Remind Us Teachers’ Kindness and Compassion Are the Best Lesson Plan

• My son’s class hated their new teacher. So a few kids decided to prank him. They slipped a rude note onto his desk and didn’t sign it. He found it after lunch, read it, and immediately went pale. When he came back to class, he looked at the kids and asked, “How did you know?” The note said, “We know you cry in your car.” A kid had seen him one afternoon through the classroom window. The teacher could have sent the kids straight to the principal. Instead, he sat down and talked to them like adults. He told them his son was in the hospital. Sometimes, when he watched his students running around, laughing and complaining about homework, he thought about all the ordinary things his son couldn’t do right now. And yes, sometimes he sat in his car and cried. But he also told them something else: he was grateful they could do those things. Then he asked them a question. “So, tell me honestly. Why don’t you like me?” And for the first time, the kids talked to him instead of about him. They told him what they hated. He listened. They listened to him. The next day, they didn’t suddenly love their new teacher but things got better. This was almost a decade ago, most of the kids (including my son) have moved away from home for college, but when they come back for the holidays, there’s a certain teacher’s house they don’t miss visiting!

• I’ve had a number of great teachers throughout my life (and more than a few bad ones). Still, one teacher in particular went above and beyond her capacity as an instructor on more occasions than I can count, and became something more like a surrogate parent or guardian angel. Mrs. Frasinello was my teacher for four years: Two years of preschool, and then two years of kindergarten. She was incredibly kind, generous, creative, and intellectually stimulating, and I can’t recall her ever once raising her voice. I could tell stories for hours about all of the ways she nurtured and cared for her students, but a few specific memories spring to mind. Once, in the fall of my second year of preschool, I happened upon a brilliantly colored leaf with a fractal pattern of yellows and reds. I toted it with me throughout the day, until — in my haste to escape another student’s teasing — I dropped it, and my pursuer tore it to shreds. I burst into tears and ran to Mrs. Frasinello, who then spent her lunch break finding me another patterned leaf. There was also the time, a year later, that I came down with the chicken pox only a few days before Halloween. I had been so anxious to go out trick-or-treating, but my parents insisted that I stay home to rest. On the evening in question, there was a knock at the door... and “The Neighborhood Witch” presented my mother with a huge bag of candy, which was to be offered to me in lieu of my being able to wander the streets in a costume. If ever something was troubling me, Mrs. Frasinello knew about it and tried to help. When I talked about what I wanted for Christmas, she repeated my words to my parents. She even bought me the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure that I’d been pining after for weeks, which is a long time when you’re five. Whenever it was a student’s birthday, she’d have the class assemble a book about them, full of drawings and well-wishes. (I can still remember how one of my classmates drew a picture of me and Laura — my childhood crush — holding hands while festooned in the garb of a prince and princess.) As I said, I could go on for hours about Mrs. Frasinello. She and I actually had a telephone conversation on the day after I graduated from high school. To this day, she remembers the names of every student she has ever taught. Oh, and at my insistence, she called me “SuperMax,” and promised that I could always be a hero.

• I had a teacher in Grades 7 and 8 who grew up in Toronto’s worst neighbourhoods and taught at those schools before getting moved to the suburbs. He put a standard of discipline on students that I’ve never seen from another teacher in my life. When talking directly to one student, he would always address the student as “Sir” or “Madam”, and only let the student address him as “Mister”. He coached the school’s basketball team, and would bench anyone whose marks were slipping. I didn’t like that very much when I was his student, but I realized how great it was in high school.

• My AP Biology and Anatomy and Physiology teacher. She was the kindest, and most down to earth person you will ever meet. She cared about each and every one of the kids in our 25 person class, and made sure she always had a one on one conversation with us per day. She was really into nerdy stuff, like Game of Thrones, and Star Wars, and would always tell us about going LARPing with her family on the weekends (Her son was even in my class), and we could get her talking about this stuff until she was crying laughing. She helped you whenever you needed it, with ANYTHING, and prepared everybody for the AP Exam so well, that by the time the test rolled around, anyone who took it got at least a 3. She would listened to my college worries for hours one afternoon and helped me through the process. I could talk about her for hours I loved her so much.

• My gym teacher saw I was struggling with math. She took home my work one weekend, taught herself how to do it, came back Monday and then taught me. She also came to my house on a saturday morning for a few hours to help me before the exam on Monday.

• Mrs. Favre, my junior year history teacher in high school, she encouraged us to think outside the box, not to believe all the junk the media poured into our heads, first teacher I’ve ever experienced who was not afraid to tell us what she really thought about life. She inspired me to develop my personal political preferences and would frequently give us assignments outside of normal curriculum to learn about current events and evalute how we felt about them. Awesome teacher, hope she’s doing well these days!

• My high school AP Calculus teacher. I was a straight A student until I took that class. I never studied until I took that class. Mrs. Crews studied with me before school, after school, and even after home football games (I was in colorguard, so I couldn’t study during the games). Because of her, I was able to pass with a low C. Without all of her dedication to helping me, I would have failed. Miserably. She went above and beyond for what she was paid. Bonus: she did not charge me for tutoring, and she never lost her patience with me, even when I did, repeatedly.

• My gifted teacher back in middle school. She let us work on our own levels. I didn’t like reading as much as the other kids so I would read comics instead and she didn’t mind it. Also, we had a project on choosing careers and she was very optimistic on my unrealistic choices as a 13 yr old. Now, I’m in college to study and hopefully work for a major car company.

• My theatre teacher is one if the best women I have ever known. She believed in me, helped me grow as a person, and was always there when I needed someone to talk to, whether it be about boy issues or missing my father who passed away. She gave me leadership opportunities, and wrote a great letter of recommendation for me. She also put on some good shows and taught me massive amounts about theatre. Without her sound advice, the positive environment she made the theatre department and the opportunities she provided me with I have NO idea where I would be.

• I teach 5th grade. For weeks, one student kept leaving his lunch untouched and quietly asking me, “Are you going to be here tomorrow?” I thought he was just stressed. But he wasn’t eating and I worried, so I asked him if I could speak to his mom. Honestly, I just wanted to figure out how we can help his anxiety but he grabbed me and whispered:"Please don’t call my mom." I didn’t but I looked up his emergency contact and called his grandma instead, That afternoon, his grandma came to school. She told me his parents had recently separated, and his mom was working two jobs to make ends meet. He was worried she wasn’t eating enough, so he’d been saving his school lunch and bringing it home for her. He hadn’t told his mom because he knew she’d feel terrible and make him eat it instead. And those questions about whether I’d be at school? I think he was just worried about another adult in his life leaving/ So I started making sure he had enough food at school without making him feel like a charity case. I also quietly arranged for extra meals to go home with him. A few weeks later, he opened his lunchbox at school and ate every bite. Before he left that afternoon, he looked at me and smiled. “Mom would want me to eat it, right?” “Absolutely.” He nodded. “Okay. I will.” Sometimes compassion isn’t about finding the perfect words. It’s noticing when a child is trying to take care of everyone else—and reminding them that they’re allowed to be taken care of, too.

Maybe that’s the real lesson: the moments that matter most aren’t always written into a teacher’s lesson plan. They’re the moments filled with kindness, empathy, wit, courage, and hope—the ones that remind kids they’re seen and supported. Here are 19 more teachers whose kindness and compassion deserve a standing ovation.