What students don't understand about teachers

After my time at my placement school ended, I went back into subbing for the last few weeks of school. I love subbing and getting to talk to and interact with students I may not have gotten a chance to meet. A while back I met a student who was angry, hurt and mean, in the entire time that I had known him there was never a smile or kind word. After this year of not getting to see him or interact with him, I went back to his school to sub and was greeted by a smiling, happy student, a glimpse of hope  was in his eye. He introduced me to his girlfriend and was more excited than ever to tell me about school and his grades. Then he asked me what I was doing that evening and invited me to his choir concert. If you ever wanted to see ugly crying, it was me that day after school. I went because for the first time in a LONG time, I felt like he was happy and I didn't want to disappoint him. So I cleared my schedule for the evening and went and the boy on stage was no longer the angry student that I had once talked to but a happy kid.

At intermission, I ran to the bathroom and when I walked out of the restroom, he was standing there with a BIG smile on his face. I gave him a hug and told him how proud I was of him. Ugly tears gathered in my eyes and he laughed at me and told me to stop. Of course, when someone tells me to stop crying... I cry more. Shocker, right? I sat through the rest of the show and thought about how much this student had changed. After the show he came back down, gave me a hug and thanked me for coming to his show. Again UGLY tears came out and I again told him how proud I was of him and how far he had come in a short time. We talked about goals and dreams for the future. Never have I been so proud.

Now you are probably asking yourself, why are you telling us this story? My answer is simple: I didn't know how much talking to a VERY hateful individual could help change them and I never thought that he was going to change. My negativity was not helping him as a student or as a person. The same will go for your students as well. If you are negative, they are going to be negative as well. If you treat them like they are inferior, they are going to act like it. Very rarely are you going to get a student that is down to act better if you are negative. They have enough negativity in their lives, without adding you into it.

Be the light that all students need.  Don't pour water on their fire.


You will never know what students will take away from you but I hope in my future, I will be the teacher that students talk about that helped them through the hard times, instead of making things worse for them.

Much love
Ms Perret