Teacher Appreciation Week: These Mentors Helped Kids ‘Feel Seen’

ACROSS AMERICA — Emily Hulevitch never “felt seen as a person” until she entered fifth grade at Edward H. Parkman School in Enfield, Connecticut.

That’s the day she landed in Jackie Lyman’s world. Now retired from the classroom, Lyman was the kind of teacher whose students remember years later as a force who helped shape their lives.

“She changed the trajectory of my whole life,” Hulevitch wrote on Facebook in response to Patch’s National Teacher Appreciation Week question about meaningful teachers.

“That’s when I truly fell in love with reading and school,” the Enfield Patch reader wrote on Facebook. “I felt safe with her. I didn’t feel like the weird kid.”

Band Teacher Brought Out Music And More

It’s impossible to value feeling safe and accepted in schools. The best teachers know what kids need to succeed and feel their self-worth, several readers told us.

In New Jersey, Gloucester Township Patch reader Lilli Pieczara’s oldest son was quiet, involved only in band and “bullied relentlessly,” until he entered Sam Brooks’ band class in at Glen Landing Middle School.

Brooks “saw his talent, gave him ambition and drive” and convinced him to audition for a conference band when he was a freshman. He was selected not just that year, but all for years he was in high school, the only student in his school to do so, his mother wrote.

Four of her children have been fortunate enough to have Brooks as a teacher, Pieczara wrote. Two of her children were in Brooks’ band classes when their youngest sibling was diagnosed with pediatric cancer.

“Mr. Brooks went to both of my children. He offered counseling, an ear, a caring attitude,” Pieczara wrote. “He let my children know they weren’t alone. It was a hard year for my children, but they knew they had a friend, a mentor.”

Brooks helped draw the musical talent out of all four of Pieczara’s children, including the youngest, whose fine and large motor skills are limited by her illness “but we find out she excels musically,” Pieczara said.

The effect he’s had on her children is much bigger, though.

“A special teacher should be someone who makes a difference, someone who doesn’t just reach one type of student,” Pieczara said. “In our case, he reached four totally different personalities. He taught them, he mentored them, he reaches them each. He lets them understand they are important! He makes them feel SEEN!”

Teacher Realized He Wasn’t Calling On Girls

Sudbury, Massachusetts, Patch reader Christine Haigh Wood said her fourth grade teacher, Mr. Jones, made a big impression on her when he apologized for the tone he’d set for the girls in his class.

“He noticed one day that the girls in class never raised their hands and that he usually only called on the boys,” she explained. “He brought the girls together and said he realized what he was doing and for the rest of the day he would only call on the girls. It was a really interesting social experiment! The boys were freaking out and pointing out how he only called on the girls.”

Loretta Ovens said she won’t forget Judy Zaino for encouraging her to hone her critical thinking skills, both in shaping her own world view and how she thinks of others.

“Her classes were always so informative, and she cared about everyone there,” Ovens, a Milford, New Hampshire, Patch reader, wrote on Facebook. “Her knowledge was something that you had to experience first hand, never boring. She taught us to think ahead in this world. To ask questions and always to want more information. To think of other’s feelings and to become a better person.”

Lisa Palmucci, a New Haven, Connecticut, Patch reader, said Rebecca Satterlee Robbins, her high school French teacher in the early 1970s, didn’t waste words when driving home a point about accountability.

“She loved the country and the language,” Palmucci said. “I was skipping her classes on a Thursday afternoon, and one day she confronted me about it upon entering her classroom.

“She told me I had potential and was wasting it. She said she was personally deeply hurt and disappointed that I would skip her class. Needless to say I never did again.”

Kimberley Holder isn’t sure where she’d be without Frank Covart, one of her high school teachers. The New Hampshire woman was a senior at Nashua High South when her cousin and aunt died unexpectedly, and had “basically given up.”

“Mr. Covart … helped me in every way he could to make sure I graduated,” Holder wrote on the Nashua Patch Facebook page. “He got my school work and would let me come to his class if I was having a bad day. We would talk. He would listen as I cried, and he would help with any homework needs I had.

“He was by far the best teacher I have ever had my entire school career. We need more like him.”

Connections Can Last A Lifetime

The connections special teachers make with their students can last a lifetime. Anthony Michael, another Enfield Patch reader, said he received a birthday card from his first grade teacher, Mrs. Kirby, every year until she died, when Michael was in his 30s. She’d been to the high school graduation ceremonies of all of her students, hundreds of them.

When she invested in a student, it was for life.

“Come to find out, when attending her memorial service, her children (now adults) showed me the boxes and boxes of names and addresses AND birthdays of hundreds of kids she once taught,” Michael wrote on the Enfield Patch Facebook page. “She sent them all birthday cards every year with such a kind, personal, and warming message. She was a Saint and just an overall amazing person.”

Michael said he became a teacher because of her and “many other amazing teachers I had in the Enfield Public School system.”

Alexis Broderick, who is finishing her freshman year in college, said that if not for her first grade teacher Susan Jahnke, “I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”

“I will never forget Ms. Jahnke,” Broderick wrote on the Milford, Connecticut, Patch Facebook page. “She was kind, caring and loved all of her students. She put us before herself. … My first grade teacher Ms. Jahnke will forever be the teacher who impacted me the most!”

Teachers who make a lasting impression learn from their students, too.

“Oh, my goodness! I am so humbled by your comments, Alexis,” Jahnke responded. “I feel so blessed that especially since many years have passed, you remember every message I tried to convey to my students. As you learned from my teaching, I learned from you as well. Your heart is full of caring and compassion for others . . . always was!”

YOUR TURN: In the comments, tell us about a teacher who left a lasting impression or changed your life.