15+ Inspiring Stories About People Who Are Teachers by Nature

Reddit user ApacheAirCover decided to ask the community about the teachers who had earned their respect. Hundreds of people replied. Each of them mentioned their favorite teacher and an interesting story about them.

At Bright Side, we read all these replies and chose the most fascinating stories for you.

• I went to a small charter school. Our English and Literature teacher was brand new to teaching, she was only 22, which seemed old at the time. She always did her best to be so cheerful and make learning fun. But the thing that truly solidified her spot as my favorite teacher was that, for every student’s birthday, she would give you a personalized mini notebook. It was just a simple small composition notebook, but she had filled the first couple pages telling me how much she loved having me as a student, how far she knew I would go, and other affirmations. It seems small, but to a 13-year-old, it made all the difference in how I acted the rest of the year. © Voiceisaweapon / Reddit

• When I was in 1st grade, my mother gave me one of many really awful haircuts. The first day back at school, afterward, the kids picked on me horribly. So much that I ran out and hid. The principal found me, we went back to the classroom, and he asked me to wait outside for a minute while he talked to the class. He then walked me to his office and bought me a Coke.
  The next day — first thing in the morning — we had an assembly with the entire school, and he walked up on stage with his head shaved completely bald and talked about bullying. Some 20 years down the road, he had retired, and I ran into him at the local college. I shook his hand and said, “You probably don’t remember me, but...”, “Yes, I do,” he interrupted, and said my name and the event.
  The man was and is a hero in my eyes. © hopgeek / Reddit

• A math teacher went to the hospital several times to visit a student who had been seriously injured in an accident. The teacher offered companionship, free tutoring, and genuine encouragement. © Back2Bach / Reddit

• I had a physical education teacher who organized basketball, volleyball, handball, and football tournaments, and even “Olympic Games” for the local kids and taught us dancing on weekends. On his own. Just for us kids, because we lived in a remote place without many activities and things going on. He was more than a simple teacher. © remote_peach / Reddit

• 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 when 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. 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. © sk8erguysk8er / Reddit

• Junior year of high school, English class. We were discussing a story we had read. One student made a point. The teacher was dismissive and basically said he was wrong. The next day, after we took our seats, the teacher said that he had been wrong about dismissing the student’s point of view so quickly. I was impressed the teacher publicly owned his mistake and went down the path he should have. © Andreas_NYC / Reddit

• I had a teacher in the 6th grade who gave me a C+ on a poster project that I turned in. When he saw my disappointment, he asked, “What grade do you think you should have gotten?” I thought for a second and said, “a B+.” He immediately scratched out the grade and gave me a B+. © realrealityreally / Reddit

• I had a teacher who told us a joke about his name (before we could) and allowed us to eat during his classes “because kids of your age can’t help being hungry all the time,” as long as we did it quietly. Great guy. His whole attitude made all of us actually pay attention and do our best. © Mom_is_watching / Reddit

• The 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 this guy? He doesn’t come up with some excuse, he just tells me he didn’t do it.” © Scratch_That_ / Reddit

• I was in college, and my teacher ran in about 10 minutes late. His excuse went something like this, “Sorry I’m late guys, I was... it’s not really important ahh... yeah just that...” I said, “...Godzilla?” And he replied without missing a beat, “Nope, Mothra.” A small thing like a sense of humor is nice. © The84thWolf / Reddit

• My math teacher once said, “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 had a professor that made it crystal clear that if we ever made an appointment and didn’t show up, he’d take 5 points off of our final grade. I tried to find him during office hours, and he wasn’t available. I told him that I deserved extra 5 points because he wasn’t available when he said he would be, and he gave them to me in the interest of fairness. © Straightup32 / Reddit

• I moved out of home during high school. It was stressful, to say the least. I started to fall behind in assignments, I would be absent for days at a time, I missed tests, etc. I ended up explaining the bare minimum of my situation to my English teacher, and their response always stuck with me.
  “Just do what you can.” It may not seem like much, but right then and there, it was everything. © jodehleh / Reddit

• I had a principal in a new school I hadn’t met yet because the first day of school was my dad’s funeral. He had no idea what I looked like, but he sought me out in the really crowded hallways and gave me a hug and his condolences. I never felt creepy, only cared about. © mmjames66 / Reddit

• My high school science teacher paused class to rip a student apart for bullying another student. She called him out as soon as it happened, in front of everyone. That bully never went near that other kid again. I will always remember that. © Mariospario / Reddit

• In my first year of high school, my class decided to play a simple prank on our English teacher by all laughing when he faced the board, and then stopping every time he turned around to face us. After a few minutes of this, he just left the classroom without a word. We all sat there, confused until a few minutes later the assistant principal comes in and explains that we’ve really upset our teacher; he made us believe we’d seriously messed up. Then our teacher walked in and pretty much went “Gotcha!” He had our respect from then on. © *** / Reddit

• Instead of shouting at my loud class for not shutting up before the lesson began, my history teacher decided to quietly tell the story of a pink elephant that wanted to be an astronaut. After a few seconds, people started to shut up and listen about the pink elephant. When everyone was quiet and listening, he stopped mid-story. It’s such a cliffhanger! © Cae1us / Reddit

Tell us about your favorite teachers. How did they earn your respect?