In Grade 6, I had a teacher named Mr. Vogel. Mr. Vogel was a thin, fastidious man, and the kids in his class liked to crack jokes at him about his multi-coloured jeans and the blinding light that would bounce off his bald forehead.
I used to laugh along with them all, but wasn’t much for joking around, since I was painfully shy at the time. But I respected him and appreciated his encouragement; his praise was a warm spring bursting within me, reminding me I was capable of doing something, being something more than I was.
He promised that someday when I wrote a best-selling book, he would buy it. I haven’t written that book, sure, but I could never have believed I could have any career as a writer if it hadn’t been for him and other teachers along the way.
Now, married to a teacher and friends with several others, I think of Mr. Vogel and other teachers like him, with newfound respect. Now I see things from another perspective, of weekends and evenings coaching, of teachers making lunches for kids whose parents have gotten to the end of the month with nothing to spare, of teachers who are tired at the end of the day and ready to go home and see their own families but who stay back to listen and support the child who is being bullied or to listen to the parent - like me - who is worried about their child not eating at all during the day.
As one person told me – “It’s like trying to break down a wall every day with your bare hands.” That sentence has echoed in my mind a lot over the last few years and it came into my mind again when I read about Nadia Lopez.
When Humans of New York blogger Brandon Stanton asked a young Vidal Chastanet who inspired most in life, he said it was his principal, Nadia Lopez.
Vidal, a 13-year-old student in a crime-ridden neighbourhood, explained how Lopez encouraged them, saying, “She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”
Many were touched and thanks to that photo and Vidal’s words, $1 million was raised for a cause dear to Lopez’s hearts – being able to take her students on a trip to visit Harvard University to show them what they could achieve.
But what was most unbelievable to me in the story was that Lopez had no idea that anybody cared about what she was doing. “I was in a place that I was broken, and I think every educator gets there,” Lopez explained on The Ellen Degeneres show. “You give so much, you put in long hours, and I literally went home and I broke down and cried and told my mother I couldn't do it any more.” When she saw Vidal’s photo, she said she “couldn’t even believe it that he thought enough of me.”
It’s devastating to think that the best and the brightest educators, those that care and give the most, are the most likely to get burnt out or quit. It’s heartbreaking to think that a person like Mrs. Lopez would not know the effect she was having on her students, when people like her make the difference between these students ending up in a jail cell or going to Harvard University.
Knowing what I know now, a year ago, I went back and emailed a couple of my former journalism professors. I knew they may not have remembered me, but I wanted them to know I remembered them and that I was thankful to them for the lessons I’d learned and that have shaped me, that continue to shape me. They both wrote back and said my email had made their day. Maybe I will find Mr. Vogel and let him know his words and encouragement are with me too, even after 20 long years.
These are the people that deserve better support. They deserve respect and understanding. They deserve to be looked in the eye and told, once in a while, “I see what you’re doing, I see that you care and trust me, even though it doesn’t always feel like it, you are making a difference – Thank you.” Because these are the people that help shape our children into the best they can be, and there are few jobs in the world that are as important as that.
