Nothing vicious, just dumb middle-school stuff.
One day during group work, I started imitating him. The teacher didn’t react at all. At the end of class, he just said, “Hey, hang back a second.” I braced myself for a lecture or detention.

Instead, he quietly told me that he didn’t want to sound like this. He had a stroke in his early twenties that left him with a lifelong speech impairment. He told me he felt lucky to be alive so my words didn’t hurt him but to understand that sometimes there’s always more to someone’s story.
After that, I started standing up for him whenever my friends made fun of him.

Once I knew why, it didn’t feel funny anymore. That empathy is what has made me a doctor today.

• In middle school one of my best mates and I got really into digital art, but had a little light-hearted rivalry because we used different software. Our IT teacher was one of those amazing teachers that really took an interest in every student; their personal lives, their interests — and he actually genuinely remembered stuff you’d tell him.Anyway, he must have overheard us ‘arguing’ about it or something during a lesson because he told us to see him at lunch time. We both assumed we were in trouble. Nope.

  He’d just gotten a Photoshop license for the school and wanted us to be the first to try it.
  He said we could come into his classroom any lunchtime we wanted to play around with it. 20 years later we’re both designers and use Photoshop every day. That is what a teacher should be. ©

• My 2nd grade teacher was the first teacher I had who realized that I was disruptive because I was bored.

  She introduced me to books that were considered to be above my age level (Anne of Green Gables and the Little House on the Prairie books, mostly) and would let me read in class if I’d finished my work, as long as I behaved.
  She had two hedgehogs that were classroom pets and I absolutely adored them. I would stay after school in her classroom waiting for my dad to pick me up, reading and playing with the hedgehogs.
  When she found out that I didn’t have a mom to go to Mother’s Day/mother-daughter events with, my teacher took me to them, and she even took me on a road trip with her to visit a friend of hers in Canada who bred hedgehogs.

  She always listened to me, made time for me, and treated me like a person worthy of respect, and as a child who was absolutely starved for attention in a big family, that meant the world to me. We’re still friends on Facebook today and I visit her whenever I go back to my home state! ©

• My 12th grade government teacher taught me how to be kind to others in a big way.

  I missed two months of my senior year due to a severe illness that left me hospitalized. He has a family and a son that needed a lot of attention but he spent so much time with me helping me get caught up not only in his class but in other classes with less understanding teachers.
  He’s now my boss and I hope he knows how much that meant to me when I was a teenager who was scared that she was going to die but wanted to graduate anyway. ©

• My son’s teacher kept him after school 3 times a week.He came home tired and didn’t say why. I thought she was punishing him, so I scheduled a meeting. Before the meeting he came home crying.

  My heart stopped when his teacher texted, “Your son has been learning to play piano. I have been teaching him to play piano after school because he wanted to surprise you for your birthday. He’s been practicing for three months and didn’t want you to find out.

  He was crying because he thought I ruined the surprise. But I couldn’t let you think I was punishing him.”

• My Language Arts teacher my senior year of HS. I had a rough start, was getting back into my old groove, but my final year we got evicted and literally had nowhere to go.

  I was a sweet kid, so when I blew up in class she took me outside and I told her. She went through this whole thing where she was helping my family.
  I was on the verge of dropping out but just like that, she saved me.

  Mrs. Voigt, wherever you are, Thank You. ©

• My son’s teacher kept sending notes home asking to speak with me. Nothing alarming, just “please call when you have a moment.” Still, my stomach tightened every time I saw one.

  My son had been withdrawn lately, and I assumed the worst.
  When we finally spoke, the teacher didn’t mention grades or behaviour. Instead, she asked how things were at home.

  I hesitated, then admitted we’d recently lost my husband and it’s been a struggle. She nodded and said, “That explains why he’s been coming in early.”
  I hadn’t known he was arriving before the bell every day. She told me he sat quietly at his desk, and she’d started keeping the classroom open early just so he wouldn’t have to wait alone outside.

  Sometimes they talked. Sometimes they didn’t.
  “I just wanted him to feel safe somewhere,” she said.

  I walked away realizing that while I worried about school, someone there had been quietly helping carry my child through a hard season.

• I was a bit of a problem child toward the end of primary school. I really started rebelling against teachers in Year 5 and into Year 6: talking back, disrupting lessons, that sort of thing. It was more of an issue in Year 5 because the teacher was harsh and unhappy, but the behaviour carried over into Year 6.That teacher, however, was much kinder. He understood that I was just being a difficult, restless kid, like many 10–11 year olds can be, and he had endless patience with me. He showed that patience one day in a way I never forgot.

  He sat me down in a room, just the two of us, and put a piece of lined A4 paper and a pencil in front of me. He asked me to write about something I was interested in, and then about something else I liked. As I wrote, he kept gently pulling the paper away, forcing me to keep pulling it back.

  I got the message immediately. He wasn’t smug or angry. He never raised his voice.

  He simply showed me how difficult a teacher’s job can become when one student keeps disrupting the flow.
  That moment really helped me improve my behavior. I hope you’re enjoying your retirement, Mr. Lowe. ©

• I never turned in homework on time, and everyone assumed I didn’t care.

  One day after class, my teacher stopped me and asked, “What’s making homework so hard for you?” I admitted that home was loud and crowded, with nowhere to sit and concentrate. There was always noise, always interruptions, and by the time things settled, I was exhausted.
  She didn’t argue or correct me.

  She simply told me I could stay in the classroom during lunch to work. She never wrote me up. She never made a big deal of it.

  She just gave me a desk, some calm, and a chance to keep up.

• My mum was going through treatment for cancer when I was doing my A-levels. My physics teacher quietly took me aside at the start of class once and explained that we would be covering radiation, including its medical use in the treatment for cancer. He offered to let me skip that lesson if I was uncomfortable or upset.I was fine but nearly 20 years later I still remember his kindness. ©

Let’s face it, school can be boring and sometimes teachers are the quiet heroes that make school a fun place. Here are the stories of 16 teachers who know no limits to creativity.