15+ Stories About Teachers Who Gained Students’ Respect With Just One Deed

Statistics found that 87% of people would like to tell their teachers how much they value their efforts. Luckily, at least 15 of them could do this. They told stories about educators who were nothing less than the coolest people.

We at Bright Side are here to share these stories with you and revive your school memories. And we didn’t forget to mention the amazing students down in the bonus section.

• Math teacher: “I don’t care if you have good grades or bad grades, if you work hard, I will work harder to make you pass.” He worked hard for me — I passed. © Thesorus / Reddit

• I gained respect for my teacher when he saw some kids going to skip and called them into his class. He told them, “If you’re gonna skip class, then come to my class and do whatever you want in the back. Rather have you inside the school than outside.” © Raw1213 / Reddit

• My English teacher in high school asked where my homework was. I responded, “I forgot to do it,” and he said to the rest of the class “Why can’t you guys be like him? He doesn’t try to come up with some excuse, he just tells me he didn’t do it.” © Scratch_That_ / Reddit

• My teacher played for a rock band that was very successful and quite popular at the time. He left just before they became popular because he wanted to be a teacher. He chose teaching kids over a chance at fame and fortune and didn’t regret it. © dasoberirishman / Reddit

• I had a professor once state that she didn’t believe in trick questions. Students trick themselves enough without the professor helping them along. She never did put any trick questions. © Nicholi417 / Reddit

• My art teacher sent out a survey a while ago and asked if we had colored pencils at home. I said no and today she dropped some off at my front door. © Jnyflrs / Reddit

• When my history teacher knew I was more depressed than usual, she gave me a pass to go to the library instead of class. She never pried; she just knew and made sure I knew she was there if I needed her. I loved her so much for how she showed the weird kid how much she cared. © tahitianhashish / Reddit

• I’m epileptic and had a large set of seizures not long before finals in high school chemistry. Those multiple seizures had devastated my memory of everything I’d learned in class that semester. After the failed test, I ended up just shy of passing the class and he decided to give me a bonus question that passed me. I didn’t expect that, but the empathy was nice to see from a teacher. © Early_or_Latte / Reddit

• I’m really good at physics when my teacher is teaching it, but I don’t understand it at all on a PDF. So my teacher made a 4 minute stop motion film to help me understand it. © PiePower43 / Reddit

• Whoever arrived late to history class had to hold a presentation the next day. If more than one student arrived late, whoever arrived last had to hold the presentation. The same rule applied to the teacher. One morning, we saw 2 students slowly jog into school, late. Suddenly, they turned around and started to run at full speed. Behind them, also running at full speed in a suit and briefcase in hand, was the teacher. He was quite fast but didn’t manage to overtake them. © bookworm1896 / Reddit

• Second year of college and my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Somehow I was adjusting to managing everything at home, taking care of my mom and finishing my assignments. I used to be late, almost daily. Completing assignments up all night made me sleep through lectures the next day. One day, I got called by this professor to go to her office. Was totally expecting to be grilled, but she hands me my assignment (I scored full marks) and said, “I don’t have a daughter, but if I had one, I’d wish to have one just like you.” © newsensequeen / Reddit

• I had a physical education teacher who organized basketball, volleyball, handball, and football tournaments, organized ’Olympic games’ for the local kids, and taught us dancing on the weekends. On his own. He was more than just a simple teacher. © remote_peach / Reddit

• I had an English teacher back in high school that offered mercy to everyone in the class. You could drop 1 assignment or test for the year. As someone who has blacked out when doing a speech 2 years before, I just told her to remove me from the speech list. © Avium / Reddit

• I was driving and saw a guy laying on the sidewalk next to a bike. I was worried he was hurt. I pulled to the side of the road to check. Reality was, he is a local school science teacher with a GoPro on his head videoing an ant hill for his students. © BradMossEsq / Twitter

• I had a principal in high school that was extremely strict and was ALWAYS looking to get people in trouble. There was this one kid that was being accused of something he didn’t actually do, and one teacher decided she’d had enough and stood up for the kid. She was an amazing teacher and, of course, he fired her at the end of the school year. That didn’t stop her from coming to my class’s graduation the next year though! © confused_honestly / Reddit

• My chemistry teacher is the only teacher in my life who allowed on the eve of the test to come after school and solve it. And she would check it and point out errors. She could not be “bribed” to give the student the desired grade. Only knowledge was important to her. © Katerina.z / Pikabu

• A math teacher always sat with me after class and explained the tasks. She was worried during my final test. And when the results were already announced, she hugged me and burst into tears. After all, I got the highest score in her class. © Ammbassador / Pikabu

• A primary school teacher took all of us home after class. She fed everyone and occupied us with educational games. Whoever didn’t understand the topic would sit next to her and they’d analyze it together. And all our parents didn’t go home after work. They went to her to drink tea. This went on for 3 years. She never took money or even hinted about payment. © solnceiasnoe / Pikabu

Bonus: Students are awesome too.

• I’m a teacher and my students noticed that I wasn’t myself for a while. I was in a bad place emotionally. They knew that I was a fan of Billie Eilish and one of them drew me this masterpiece. © kingyeates / Reddit

• I was appointed to teach an Intro to Biological Sciences class to first-year undergraduates. On the last day before the course ended, I walked into class and greeted everyone, then suddenly noticed that there were posters hung up on all the walls. A group of students had surreptitiously taken a picture of me while I was teaching, then edited it, made copies of it and hung them up all around the room to surprise me. © Vishak Raman / Quora

• My mom is a teacher and one day made the mistake of taking one student’s banana from lunch they were going to throw out and telling them she would feed it to my pet pig. Today was the most unwanted bananas we ever got in one day. © cplkm / Reddit

Do you remember your teachers? Do you have cool stories about them? You can tell them to everyone in the comments.