When a young girl suddenly stopped showing up to school, one teacher noticed something was wrong and decided to check on her.
He had no idea that a simple knock on a classroom door would lead to a moment that would change both their lives.
“It was a horrible moment,” the teacher said in an interview, shared on YouTube last week.
When a girl stopped showing up to school, one teacher noticed something was wrong and checked in on her
Anna Tolipova/Magnific (not the actual photo)
Jonathan Shaw, a high school teacher in Maryland, recently sat down with the YouTube podcast, Soft White Underbelly, to chat about “kids today.”
The Health teacher and tennis coach started the interview, shared on October 21, by saying, “In almost a decade-long career, I’ve never been asked to raise my voice, even on the tennis court.”
One experience with a struggling student left a lasting impression on him, reminding him just how much of a difference teachers can make in a young person’s life.
Zenith/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Shaw recalled a girl who had been learning tennis under his coaching for “several years.”
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she stopped showing up to school. She even stopped coming to the tennis court for practice.
After noticing she was absent for multiple days, he decided to find out what was going on.
The girl began crying in front of him after he pulled her out of class one day
Vitaly Gariev/Pexels (not the actual photo)
“I go to the front office, and I ask if she’s in that day, because she had missed about five of the last six days,” he said.
When the staff member told him she was in class, Shaw decided to go find her and asked her to step outside.
He was completely caught off guard by her reaction to seeing him.
“She comes out, and she just started losing it. I mean, just crying right in front of me,” she said.
“It was a horrible moment. At the time, she just was dealing with some significant issues at home,” she said.
“[Her] mental health was terrible, and she was really struggling to find the ability to get up in the morning and go to class. And tennis wasn’t a priority for her,” he said.
The teacher and the student spoke over lunch, where she opened up about some of the things she was dealing with in her personal life.
Shaw explained that the girl was having a hard time at home and struggling with mental health issues
Aibek Skakov/Pexels (not the actual photo)
“She was dealing with a lot at home, and that was translating to some significant mental health injuries,” he said.
For the next week, they spoke every single day, and the young girl returned back to tennis and also scored well that year.
Shortly after her graduation, the girl sent an email that Shaw still has taped to the back of his classroom.
Dragana_Gordic/Magnific (not the actual photo)
In her email, the girl said she “was just looking for somebody to like reach out and lend a helping hand” when Shaw took the effort to pull her out of class on the fateful day.
“It was just great,” he said about the email, reflecting on the impact he had on her.
The student said she was looking for an “angel” to come in and save her.
So “when I knocked on the door … she felt like her prayers had been answered,” he added.
The Health teacher said interactions like these can really change a person’s life
Vincent Peters/Pexels (not the actual photo)
“Something like that… it really changes you as an individual. It changes you as a person,” he said.
Fighting back tears, the teacher said her email came at a time when he, too, was also struggling with personal matters and having mental health challenges.
He now continues to look back at the email as a reminder of how people can change each other’s lives.
“Any day I have a really tough day at school, I just look at the letter,” he said.
Shaw said there’s “no amount of money” he would trade to have the connection he had with the student.
He mentioned that the girl is now doing “great” in college and is “on pace to graduate.”
She’s “just doing so much better… So those moments, I would never change for anything,” he added.
“This guy seems like an excellent teacher and his students are very fortunate to have him,” one commented online
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