11 Teachers Whose Extra Help, Extra Lunch and Second Chances Changed a Student’s Year

• My daughter came home sad because she was the only one in her class with a plain backpack. She asked me if I could buy her another one with flowers but I’m a single mom and my budget was already stretched thin.
  I mentioned it to my mom (her grandmom). The next day, I found her sewing flowers, ribbons, beads & patches onto it by hand. She worked on it all weekend. My daughter cried when mom gave it to her.
  Then her teacher called: “Did you sew this? Come see what she did.” Worried, I rushed to school. Apparently, my daughter had come to school and proudly shared with everyone that her grandma had stitched her backpack for her.
  Some of the other girls in class asked if they could add a flower on their own backpacks. She said that her grandma would get tired stitching everyone’s backpacks and some of them started crying. The teacher had sat the whole class down and taught them how to be polite and treat requests with compassion.
  She then called me to ask if I could come to the kid’s Art class one day and teach them basic sewing. I laughed and told her it was my mom who had stitched my daughter’s backpack but I’m sure she’d be happy to help the girls.

• After my parents separated, my mom moved us from Phoenix, Arizona to Scottsdale to be closer to her family. My dad was supposed to visit every other weekend. He cancelled so often that I eventually stopped telling my friends when he was coming.
  In eighth grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Miller, asked us to write about something we were looking forward to. I wrote about my dad taking me to a baseball game. He cancelled that Friday.
  The following Monday, Mrs. Miller stopped beside my desk before class. “How was the game?” she asked. I told her he hadn’t come. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to it,” handed me my graded essay and went back to her desk.
  That was it. She didn’t tell me my dad probably had a good reason. She didn’t insist that he loved me or ask me to explain what had happened. She just acknowledged that I was disappointed.
  Over the next few months, she’d occasionally ask how things were going. Sometimes, she’d remember a book I’d mentioned or ask whether I’d enjoyed a weekend activity. She never treated me like a troubled kid. I was just another student in her class.
  Years later, I became a teacher myself. I now understand how easy it is to get caught up in lesson plans, grading, and keeping a classroom running. It’s not always easy to notice when a child is carrying something difficult.
  Mrs. Miller couldn’t change my relationship with my dad, but her kindness made me feel that my disappointment mattered. For a kid who felt like he was disposable growing up, that meant everything!

• My fifth grade teacher refused to let me and about 8 other boys in his class get past him without learning math. We were all at least a grade behind the others. We stayed after school for extra work, our parents were given assignments to help us learn. By the end of the year we were all at grade level or above. He refused to just pass us along.

• I was 17 and I couldn’t write a proper sentence. Teacher pulled me aside, basically said, “You’re not stupid, but your writing makes you sound like you are. You’re better than this,” and then he sat with me during work time every class for at least 10 minutes and just worked on my writing.
  I didn’t turn into some English genius, but I swear he was single-handedly responsible for me getting into University.

• A week before final exams, my geography teacher asked me and a group of other students to stay behind, and informed us that our current grades in the class were so low that we would fail the class if we didn’t do well on the exam. The class was taught in French, so for some grasping the material was difficult in a second language.
  She told us that the day before our exam she would hold a study period in the afternoon (after that day’s exams were already done) so she could help us. Of the group, only me and one other girl showed up, along with 2 others who were doing well in the class but wanted to take advantage of the study period.
  After that, so much of the material we had learned started making sense when she went over it all with us. I decided my goal for the exam was to get a 70%, and I got a 69%. Had it not been for my teacher taking the extra step to help us, I never would have passed the class, let alone get that close to my goal on the exam.
  I still only passed the class with my overall grade being in the low 60s, but I was really proud of my exam grade.

• My fifth grade teacher never needed to be told things were rough for me at home, he just understood and helped where he could. I used to think he was strange because he always over packed his lunch and had extra food he’d share with me.
  It wasn’t until a few years later as well that I realised he started staying back after school so I could have a supervised classroom to read in because I would put off going home until as late as possible. He would lend me books all the time and he was the first adult that just made me feel like not only could I trust him, he trusted and respected me.

• I had a stutter in middle school, and reading aloud was something I dreaded. So I became an expert at avoiding eye contact whenever our English teacher asked for volunteers.
  One day, I wasn’t quick enough. I was halfway through a passage when I got stuck on a word. I tried again, but nothing came out. I could feel my face burning. Mrs. Parker waited a moment before saying, “Thank you. Let’s have someone else continue.”
  She moved straight to the next student. There was no lecture, no announcement that I needed extra time, and no awkward conversation after class. She simply let me sit down.
  Over the following months, she treated me the same as everyone else. When I struggled, she gave me time. When I finished a passage, she thanked me and continued the lesson.
  One afternoon, she returned an essay I’d written and said she particularly liked my description of a character. “Have you ever thought about writing for the school newspaper?” she asked. I hadn’t. I’d always assumed that struggling to speak meant I wasn’t good at expressing myself.
  I joined the newspaper the following year and eventually studied communications in college. My stutter never completely disappeared, but I stopped treating it as something that made me less capable than other students. And yes, I’m a journalist in New York now.

• This will probably get lost, but I want to shout out this teacher of mine. She was our AP English Language teacher for our senior year of high school.
  On one of the first days in her class, she explained how she went from being a kindergarten teacher to a high school senior teacher. She always saw off her cute and happy kindergarten kids, but as they grew up and they came back to visit her, a lot of them came to her troubled and dissatisfied with their lives.
  It made her really emotional about how people had treated these kids she loved so much, how she couldn’t afford to see kids so disconnected with life, and how she didn’t want them to suffer as they headed out towards college and their adult lives.
  So she changed curriculums and started teaching seniors. If I remember right, it always came down to sending her kids off with a smile, prepping them for the real world. I respect her the most and she’ll always be one of my favorites. Truly like a mother to all her students.

• When I was a kid we had to purchase these red punch cards to get lunch at school. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that much money so there were times where my punch card would run out and I wasn’t able to eat for a while until we got enough money to repurchase another one (why nobody in my family applied for assistance was beyond me).
  I had one teacher who noticed I wasn’t eating every day and she would bring an extra sandwich and offer it to me whenever she saw that. I really didn’t understand how kind that was when I was a kid but obviously as an adult, that was such an amazing gesture of kindness.

• One of my high school math teachers had a policy that you could retake any test as many times as you needed to. No penalties. And she would help tutor you during any study hall or before or after school or during lunch.
  Must’ve been a huge pain time wise to write new tests and tutor and grade. But her stance was that she was there to teach. And if you didn’t grasp it enough for the test, you didn’t gain anything by failing and moving on. But if you cared and wanted to learn how to do it, then she was responsible to support you the entire way there.
  Edit: Also now remembering that she spearheaded this thing around prom or dances where she and the other teachers would pool together some money.
  She would tell us that if any of us couldn’t afford the tickets or an outfit for them then to see her or drop a note on her desk or call her and she would make sure you got to go. And now having a better grasp on just how badly we pay teachers — she’s just an incredible person.

• When I was 16, I worked evenings at a fast-food restaurant to help my mom pay our bills. I’d get home around midnight and drag myself to school the next morning. My grades started slipping, and I regularly fell asleep during first-period history. Most teachers assumed I was lazy.
  Mr. Harris, my history teacher, at a public school in Bakersfield, CA was the exception. One morning, he asked me to stay behind after class. I was expecting a lecture about responsibility, but he simply asked whether everything was okay at home.
  I told him about my job and how my mom was struggling financially. I felt embarrassed admitting that I was working while other students my age spent their afternoons hanging out with friends. He listened and said, “That sounds like a lot to handle at your age.”
  He didn’t offer to solve my problems or tell me to quit my job. Instead, he helped me figure out which assignments I needed to prioritise and told me I could come to him if I needed extra help.
  After that, he stopped calling attention to me when I struggled to stay awake. If I missed an instruction, he’d quietly repeat it rather than reprimanding me in front of everyone. His kindness made it easier to walk into class without feeling like a failure.
  Years later, I ran into him at a grocery store and told him I’d graduated from college. He smiled and said he always knew I would do well. I don’t think he realised how much his compassion mattered. He hadn’t changed my circumstances, but he made me feel that someone at school understood what I was going through.
  Now that I’m older, I appreciate how much those small gestures can mean. We often talk about parenting as the responsibility of helping children through difficult times, but a caring teacher can make a difference, too.

A little kindness from a teacher can stay with a student long after the school year ends. Whether it’s offering extra help, showing patience, or simply making a child feel understood, these small acts of compassion can make school a more supportive place to learn and grow.