We were at Copper Ridge for my husband to have a minor outpatient medical procedure. A nurse walked in to help get things ready and she immediately captured our attention.
In her 20s, I assumed, she was poised, funny, smart, professional and engaging. She was asking us questions about ourselves, then I followed up to ask some about her. She mentioned she grew up in the Ann Arbor area. Thinking she’s about the same age as my niece and nephew who went to high school around there, I asked her where she attended.
She said she went to high school in one of the small towns around Ann Arbor, but that it was going pretty badly. So after her sophomore year, she enrolled in an early college high school offered by the local community college where she was able to graduate while also starting to earn post-secondary credits.
At that, her face took on a starstruck-like quality as she said it was the best place in the world ever. She then went on to mention a specific teacher by name. She said he was the first one who ever tried to teach her math in a way that she could understand it. If it wasn’t for that school, and that teacher, she didn’t know if she’d be where she is today.
I have long believed that teachers and coaches don’t always realize the impact they make — how just showing that they care, offering praise and encouraging words, modeling a good example and/or spending a little extra time with students who need it can change the course of their lives. I asked her, “Did you ever tell him?”
She said she hadn’t, adding something along the lines of that she wasn’t the type of kid who got particularly close to her teachers in that way.
Out in the waiting room by myself a short time later, I kept thinking about it. That teacher should hear this, I thought. It has to be gratifying to get this kind of feedback. I had my laptop with me so did an online search and up he came, along with his email address.
So I sent him a note, telling him about the exchange we’d just had with his former student who couldn’t say enough nice things about him, and that I thought he should know. I told him her first name (all I knew), that she lives in Leelanau County and is getting married in May.
He wrote back a little later, thanking me for passing it along and then self-effacingly going on to talk about what an amazing place the school is.
“I am thankful to be a part of the community here,” he said. “The teachers, the students, the families — everyone.”
He went on to say that should I see her again, “Please tell her thanks and that I’m happy to hear she is doing so well.”
I followed up and told him that I probably wouldn’t be seeing her again. But then I had another thought — maybe she reads the newspaper.