35 Teachers In This Online Group Talk About Students They’ll Never Forget

I had a kid, 16, total addict. Alcoholic, meth, pills, heroin. Really rough childhood. Started smoking crack with his dad at 13, stepdad committed suicide in front of him at 14, unimaginable s!@# in between.

He’d come to school high or drunk and we would send him home. Nice kid, always respectful and just had “a good soul”.

One day he was all sorts of messed up and I pull him out of class. I told him that I loved him and I was worried and if he kept this up he would more than likely be dead by 30. He freaked out and ran to the principals office and complained that I had just told him that I loved him and cared about him. Principal said “Well, maybe he loves you and cares about you.”

We kicked him out of school after we had to.

He got sober. He came back to track me down. He grabbed me and started sobbing. He said when I said I loved him it was the first time and adult had said that to him and he believed it.

He has stayed sober for years, went to college, and is doing really well as a nurse now.

I’ve had many students that are still taking a large place in my heart. Some are sad, like the girl whose mother started beating her during a parent conference. I started crying and begged the mother to stop.

The student who had no water or electricity at home but we allowed him to shower at school and we washed his clothes.

The student who watched his grandparents get murdered by his mother and wrote about it in an essay for my class.

The student who had never been in a lake that we took camping. He was so excited but didn’t know how to swim. So he just stood in the water up to his neck and grinned. Lovely.

The girl with terrible anxiety that I sat with for hours after school to work on school work, not because she wasn’t smart, but because she was so anxious about not being perfect.

The girl who was mauled by a dog, which messed up her face, but she always smiled.

The girl whose father brought her to school every day late who finally broke down and told me her father was raping her every day when the mother left to go to work.

The Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees who flooded my school after the war. One wrote an essay about running towards a boat and seeing his grandfather get shot but he had to keep running.

The Brazilian boy who got up in class and got me to start dancing with him while we all laughed joyfully.

The group of students I took outside during their first snowstorm. The wonder on their faces was priceless.

The student who found me on Facebook after 20 years to tell me I made a difference in her life. She came to my state and took me to dinner and told me I was there for her when her home life was terrible. I had no idea. I’m just kind to everyone.

I have a million more stories. I have loved every student and being able to teach has been an honor.

Had a student who did very well, always pleasant, helped others, etc.

One evening I had to run back to the school to pick up my car as I had went out with some fellow instructors. As I was preparing to leave I noticed activity near the dumpsters and saw him digging through them pulling out food scraps from the cafeteria. My heart sank about 1000 feet. I didn't know what to do -- if I were to go up to him, he'd know I knew and I just didn't know how he would react.

I talked with a colleague of mine who knew a social worker. The family had suffered the loss of his dad about two years ago, and now his mom was battling cancer. To say they were hanging on by a thread would be an understatement.

We knew we had to do something. So we all waited one evening and sure enough, he returned. He was scared, ashamed, crying, angry -- every emotion you can think of. I do not blame him. We took him to his home and his mom was emotional too. We ordered hot food and a colleague went and got it, and we all spent many hours that evening talking and reassuring them we were there to help.

Working with local resources, we got them the help they needed. Food, medical assistance, even local volunteers to come help with some chores around their house.

The mom got better thankfully, and the bright young man continued to do well in school and got a scholarship for college when he graduated a few years later.

This was 20 years ago -- today, that bright young man works as a mechanical engineer and is still as generous and considerate as ever. His mother, sadly, passed on around 10 years ago. All 3 of his "former teachers" from that night went to the funeral.

I am very proud of him. We still keep in touch, and visit often.

I teach at a prison.

The first inmate I had graduate under my teaching cried when he looked at his diploma. He was the first in his entire family to graduate. It was quite the accomplishment and I was very moved.

A wonderful young man who was killed in a car accident back in early June 2020. He was in his Grade 11 year.

Took him under my wing in Grade 9. Worked on his impulsive behaviour, colourful language, anger management and questionable life choices. By Grade 10, he was a mentor to incoming Grade 9s that had similar issues as himself. In Grade 11, he was a leader here in the school, volunteering, joined the Arts community and held down two after school jobs.

We shook hands everyday, he'd bring me coffee, his last text to me said: "Life is beautiful, man" and he had recently told me that he wished that I was his dad.

He wasn't wearing a seatbelt coming home from one of those jobs. He was killed instantly after being ejected from a car he was a passenger in. My commute to and from work everyday passes by the exact spot he was killed.

Miss you, Edward.

I was a watersports instructor teaching people kayaking and canoeing a couple years back.

There was a group of refugees, all minors between 11-17 that came to us through a charity that was supporting them gaining asylum in my country (UK).

All of them had crossed the channel on a raft or dinghy literally 2 days before, and for some goddamn reason the charity had decided it was a good time to take them canoeing! Can't make this s!@# up.

There was this one kid from South Sudan, 15 years old and an absolute behemoth. We're talking 6 foot plus and pushing 14-15 stone in weight. Covered in scars, some of them ritualistic scarification, missing teeth and generally just looking like he'd been through hell many times.

He was terrified of the water. I took him in my boat, nice and easy, then once he got comfortable I just stuck a stern rudder in and let him power us through the water.

Him and the other kids loved it! We had some tears at the beginning, I imagine there was a lot of PTSD involved judging by the state of some of these poor kids.

At the end of the session, this giant monster of a child walked up to me with a huge jagged grin, said in broken english "thank you leader" and gave me a bear hug I'll never forget.

To this day, 4 years later, I still remember that grin.

I teach English as a foreign language and had a class of middle school students who needed to use sequential words (First, Next, Then, etc.) to describe making something as part of their end-of-book test. Most students used the example presented in the book on how to make a sandwich. Some were creative and write about how to make a hamburger instead. One boy raised his hand and asked if he could write about a computer game. "As long as you follow the instructions, I don't mind."

Ten minutes later he asked for a blank sheet of paper. Whereas everyone else answered the question with four or five short sentences this particular student wrote two and a half pages on how to make a house in MineCraft -- creating tools, assembling material, avoiding enemies, etc. One of the most impressive things I've seen from students at that level.

Dance instructor. Student had one hemisphere of her brain removed as an infant and she was paralyzed on one side. She said that she wanted to dance because she wanted people to see that she wasn't ashamed of her body. After months and months she finally managed one spin around. The other instructor cried, I cried, she cried. It was f!@#$%^ incredible.

I had a 7th grader that was the biggest, happiest doofus. He actually was pretty intelligent, but he was such an open book (and didn't put much effort into school) that he came across as a bit of a fool.

Other teachers treated him like a nuisance, because he definitely was a distraction to other kids. He didn't try to be disruptive; he just was.

But he lit up the room with positive energy and was genuinely happy to enjoy every moment of being alive. I didn't understand how his prior teachers were annoyed by him because he genuinely was a ray of sunshine and he made everyone a little happier by being in his presence. He was always smiling, always entertained by life--and it was contagious. Kind of like a human golden retriever.

I helped him learn how to set school-related goals for himself and take more of an interest in the things we studied, and he was so proud of earning his first A in my class.

The reason I will never forget him is because I wasn't yet a mother when I taught him, and I decided then that "if I ever have kids, I hope they will be as happy as Oscar is." I would try to encourage their sense of wonder and fun, above all else.

Not a teacher anymore, but there are so, so many of them.

I'll never forget the little boy who was abused from birth to age 3 before he was finally taken away from his mother (who was struggling with a serious drug addiction) and adopted by his maternal grandmother. He had some delays but he was such a smart little kid who absolutely loved dinosaurs.

I'll never forget the student who didn't have anything to give me for Christmas, but he wanted to give me something so badly that he taped his fruit roll up from his lunch onto a piece of paper and handwrote a Christmas card.

I'll never forget the kid who sobbed in my lap at recess when her mother was going through chemotherapy, because she was terrified. Months later, this same kid came running down the hallway and literally leapt into my arms while screaming "Miss N, my mom is going to be okay!"

I'll never forget the kid who noticed that my pencil jar (for students who needed pencils) was empty, so he filled it with his own.

I'll never forget the little girl who came to school every day with dirty clothes, sometimes the same clothes she had on the day before. She made her lunch herself at 6 years old, and she never had anything fresh or healthy, it was generally packaged because that's what they had. She would also hug anyone and everyone because she was so desperate for affection. I was a student teacher, but the principal was trying to get authorities involved by the time I left. I hope she got help.

I'll never forget the kid who emailed me on the weekends and over holidays, just to tell me what's going on and to say hello.

There are so many more, I could go on for ages.

Goose.

His nickname was Gus (pronounced Goose), and he was first in my English 1 class. Gus was receiving Special Education services, and he had generally not experienced success in English class or school.

But he was so coachable. The next year he wanted to have my English 2 class, but I only had pre-AP options. Gus requested to be placed into pre-AP, which doesn't usually have students receiving Special Education services. Then, Gus met two young ladies who took him under their wing.

By the end of the year, Gus EXITED the Special Education program.

That's the one and only time in my teaching career (13 years in Texas so far) I have ever seen a student exit SpEd.

Not a teacher but in my 5th grade math class when my teacher called my name on the first day of school, she paused, lowered her glasses and asked, "are you (my uncle's name)'s son?" I said "no". And she gave a huge sigh of relief and said "oh thank God." this was over 20 years after she had my uncle as a student.

I told my dad about that later that day and he laughed and said my uncle was quite a terror in elementary school.

This huge 8th grader named Earl who wanted everyone to think he was a badass and he did get into quite a bit of trouble, but in reality he loved math. He took a test in class one day and begged me after to let him retake it because he didn't think he did well. I graded it and he got 100%, so I called his mom to deliver the news and you could tell it was the first positive phone call she'd ever gotten about her son.

Big Mike.

I’m a HS science teacher in an affluent suburb. We get this transfer kid in who is about 6’8”, 350, long thin Hulk Hogan mullet (not bald tho) and big glasses. Mike hailed from the hollars of Kentucky, thick southern accent, and was the most quotable kid I ever met.

“I hate books Mr. xxxxx they PISS me off.”

“My grandma made me sleep on the porch because she cooked some veggies and I told her dang it woman where’s the meat?!”

“I ain’t never seen a pencil like this. Can I keep this and show my dad?” (Talking about a regular mechanical pencil)

“They threw me out of Golden Corrall because I ate 8 of them steaks they had. I was pissed, next time I’m trying for nine.”

And we were supposed to have a fire drill at like 1:55 or some odd time, at 1:57 he went ahead and pulled it honest to god thinking he would help out whoever forgot.

I’m a professor and I had a student who was a big dude, much older than the typical college student like maybe 40, ex-military, and very stoic. We did a simulation exercise during class where students had to make a decision about whether to race a car or withdraw from the race. Most students go forward with the race for a variety of reasons, but what they don’t know is that this situation mirrors the decision that NASA made with the challenger launch (which obviously exploded).

After the exercise, the student came up to me and started crying and said it was the most impactful exercise he’s ever done and that when I have hard days I should remember that I made a difference for him. I almost started crying myself. It was a great moment in my career.

The one who told me, “you really make me think.” We are friends to this day and have the best conversations. It’s the highest compliment for a teacher.

This kid J-, 10 years old with a learning disability, was struggling at home (divorce/living with grandma) and at school. It was my first year teaching and he would often lash out to get attention and be purposely annoying to see if he could get a rise out of me.

Pretty soon it became clear that he was just lonely and isolated so he needed a friend. After getting to know him for a couple of weeks, I was happy to become his friend that year and he and I became so close that he would bend over backwards trying to catch up on work just so he could hang out with me. I saw him struggle pretty heavily, even with one-on-one support but apart from a couple of moments of crisis, he kept his nose to the grindstone and worked hard every day.

This isn't a movie so he still wasn't the best student in the class but he made so much progress compared to the beginning of the year that every time I even thought about calling out or taking it easy I though "J needs me" and he did.

I was still in high school myself when I joined a program to be a teacher's assistant at a nearby kindergarten. The kids were all so lovely and loving, and I enjoyed getting to know each of them as individuals.

One day, midway through the year, we got a new little girl in the class. Serena was a quiet kid, but bright, attentive. She always ran up to hug me around the waist when I came into the classroom. At some point, the classroom teacher mentioned to me that the reason she was new to class was that she and her mom were living in the women's shelter in town, but that was all the information I had.

A little over a month later, I came in one day and Serena didn't hug me. She was withdrawn, by herself in a corner, and the teacher advised me that it was a "bad day" so we weren't pressuring Serena to do any school work. At one point I did go to check on her, and Serena started crying and clinging to me, telling me that she wanted to go home to her mommy. I gave her a hug and let her cry, but I felt totally helpless. I didn't really know what was going on, and I was only 17 myself. There wasn't anything I could do.

The next time I came in to teach, Serena was gone, and I never saw her again. She'd be about 21 or 22 years old now.

I taught GED classes in a local prison to the mens SAP program. These weren't violent offenders, they were just addicts that got caught up.

Totally the most rewarding position I have EVER had in education. Seeing those men get their GED was incredible. One old man, he was a carny that traveled the US his entire adult life, never made it past 8th grade, got his GED right before the virus shut everything down.

He came and found me in my classroom and hugged me like a brother and thanked me. I still remember his full name, he made that much of an impression on me. He was due to get released a few weeks later, I really hope he's doing well....

I taught 6th grade English. Had this student who was way too smart and funny for his age. He lived right by the school and he'd stay after school some days and just chill out while I was grading papers. I liked him a lot.

I kept things pretty light in the classroom. Tried to make the kids laugh when I could. One day, I start in on this joke rant about the word "chillax."

"Can I just say something about the word, 'chillax' guys? It's a ridiculous word. I like slang. I'm all for language changing over time. But chillax doesn't solve a problem! It's the word 'chill" which means relax, combined with 'relax' which means relax, to make 'chillax' which ALSO MEANS RELAX! It's pointless!"

And this kid stands up and interrupts me with, "Whoa whoa whoa, just chillax, Mr. X!"

I laughed pretty hard. It might not be that funny to you. But his timing, his tone...it was perfect. Especially for a kid his age. Hope he's doing well.