Blog

In teaching, just like in life, there are some people you don’t get along with. I find that with teaching middle school, there are at least two or three kids a year that I look at and think, “It’s going to be a long year.” Don’t misjudge me, I want to like all of my students and I really do try my best to connect with each of them. Sometimes, however, it just doesn’t happen. This is the point where I remind myself that I have a job to do, educate this child. I don’t have to be best friends with them and they certainly don’t have to like me either. But, at the end of the day, I am responsible for part of that child’s education.

This year, there was a student in my eighth grade math class that I knew, from the beginning; I wasn’t going to bond with. He was very needy, had a little bit of a personal space issue, and was just awkward overall. I tried to find something to help me connect with him but every time I tried, I just came away more irritated and he withdrew a little more. So, after I resolved that we were simply going to be teacher and student, I had to become very proficient in setting aside our differences when it came to teaching him. Even though it wasn’t the kind of relationship I like to have with my students, it worked and we survived the year.

I went to check my mailbox at school one morning and found two handwritten letters on notebook paper with a typed note attached. The eighth grade reading teacher had the students write letters/essays to one teacher that impacted them in their time at the school. I immediately recognized the handwriting on one of the letters as the student who I had struggled to develop a relationship with all year. I was so shocked that I had to read it right away. I half expected to read some generic letter, written because he couldn’t think of anything else to write. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

He thanked me for teaching him, for always being willing to go slow in class, and for making sure everyone understood what we were doing. Then, he thanked me for so many things that I never knew I was doing for him. He got teased a lot and thanked me for the one simple classroom rule: Respect. He thanked me for keeping the distracting kids under control so everyone could learn. And the last thing he thanked me for is something I will never forget:

Thank you for showing me that a teacher isn’t just someone who tells us stuff and expects us to remember. You showed me that a teacher is someone who cares about all of us and about our lives. Thanks for that.

Here, I was pretty sure that this student hated me. After reading his letter, I was speechless. The thing that he was thanking me for was just being me. It had nothing to do with my teaching style or classroom management or data-driven instruction. I never consciously thought about the things he thanked me for as having that much meaning to my students. And yet, he was profoundly affected by it.

As it turned out, this student went from being classified as at least two grade levels behind last year to testing on grade level this year. That’s something I’ve come to expect from my students. But what keeps me coming back are the unexpected rewards, like that letter. No data or test results can compare to that.