The Encourager

Every middle school student needs at least one person who believes they will succeed. Someone who tells them that they can achieve their dreams, and sees potential through the awkwardness of pre-teen angst and the uncontrollable emotions. I was fortunate enough to have a few people like this, but one stood out, not only to me but my fellow classmates as well.

We all had teachers who had favorites. Some didn’t care and it showed, others were extra attentive to their star students and let the rest fall by the way, but some made their subject come alive, made everyone excited, and you could tell by sitting in their classroom — they cared about every student and wanted each student to succeed.

We all knew we had a guy championing for us. He never seemed surprised when we did well, he knew we could. When we failed, he’d help. I remember his class being fun and exciting, but more than that I remember feeling confident, and as a 12 year old, this meant everything. I really loved his class. We felt safe there, my friends and I would hang out and do extra credit projects because we thought it was fun, and he encouraged it. He would tell us that he believed we could be anything and we could do anything. It was an encouraging environment, one that fostered learning and exploring, creativity and curiosity. Not every class was that way, but his approach to teaching us was so laid back, it was easy to be comfortable asking questions and making mistakes — learning as we went.

Middle schoolers who have a lot of confidence are few and far between. I struggled then, as I do now, to know what I wanted out of my future. I had a few ideas, but then, it’s easy when you’re 12 to say you want to be a brain surgeon, or a cardiovascular doctor, or a defense attorney, or a NASA physicist… All of which are not necessarily off the table! But the reason they’re not is because somewhere in the recesses of my mind I can still hear him telling me, “You can be anything, you can do anything.”