It’s largely a thankless job so I wanted to have a thread for those teachers we know that go above and beyond their duties. Some teachers aren’t great but a few really make a difference in a child’s life.
In our case, it’s D18’s Biotech teacher. D18 had fallen into a deep, dark hole emotionally in 8th-10th grade. She switched from the Marketing pathway to the Biotech pathway at HS over the summer between 9th and 10th grade. The Biotech teacher was encouraging and personally engaging. She didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t her job. Yet, she encouraged our D18 to get involved in more school activities, apply for an exclusive summer internship at the flagship StateU, get involved in tutoring underclassmen, apply for the school’s iGEM team (one of only eight in the USA), etc. It has made an incredible difference in D18’s life. We can’t thank her enough.
I’m not sure who did it or if it was just age and maturity but a relative made it out of her rebellious phase, stopped smoking and lying to our folks and became a peer counselor and realized she didn’t have to live in the shadows, oveshadowed by her wunderkid 2 years older brother who was a standout even at Stanford. She came into her own and became a fabulous special ed teacher and is living a great life. High school was definitely s turning point and I thank all the faculty who helped turn her in the right direction.
At kids’ HS, the English teacher who noticed the quiet Hispanic boy who was such an eloquent writer. She asked why he was not in advanced classes. Turns out his family moved around a lot and he had never been in one school long enough to be tested/noticed. She noticed and got him moved into more challenging classes and encouraged him. This Dreamer blossomed and wound up at Harvard.