One of the emails I subscribe to for news summaries includes a weekly feature where they ask a question and allow readers to submit their answers.
In August, for instance, they tied the question to the back-to-school season and asked, “What teacher had the biggest impact on you and why?”
A week later, they shared four of the responses, and I was struck by the common themes, not only in those four responses, but in my personal experience.
Pause and think about the question for a few seconds.
Who was that teacher for you and why?
For me, it was Mr. John Gorson, one of my teachers when I was in the sixth grade at McAnnulty Elementary School in Pittsburgh.
When I reached Mr. Gorson’s classroom, I was, at best, an average student. My mother had decided to enroll me in school a year earlier than recommended so that I would be in the same class with several of my buddies in the neighborhood who were slightly older. As a result, I was always behind, and it showed in my grades — report cards filled mostly with Cs and Ds.
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About the time my parents and I began to believe that Cs and Ds were the best I could do, along came Mr. Gorson. For some reason, he liked me and he told my parents that I had “strong potential” and that I was starting to blossom and catch up. He encouraged them (and me) to not give up.
“He’s close to doing really well,” Mr. Gorson said. “Keep working hard.”
Mr. Gorson was right. By my seventh-grade year, I was nearly a straight-A student and I graduated high school (when I was still 17) with a strong GPA before going to Penn State.
It just took a while for me to find my academic footing, and for that I needed someone to believe in me and help me believe in myself. Mr. Gorson was that someone.
The responses published in the newsletter sang a similar reframe.
A guy from Boston wrote about Mr. Z, who played Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen music as part of his poetry/creative writing class, wore jeans and sandals, and taught this particular student to “be myself in a school otherwise filled with conformity.”
A woman from North Carolina said Mr. Davies “tricked” her into a math competition, and she won first place. “From then on,” she said, “I believed in myself.”
A man from Texas recalled asking his English teacher, Mr. Hull, if there were poisonous snakes in Denmark. Mr. Hull didn’t know, and apparently this was in the pre-Google/AI days. But he took the time to research the answer for his student.
“To this day,” the Texan wrote, “it reminds me that all questions are asked for a reason and worth answering.”
(By the way, the European Adder is only species of poisonous snake native to Denmark.)
Another student praised his ESL teacher for being “the most supportive and encouraging person ever” and changing his life by helping him go to a community college.
Here’s what I think all of those teachers had in common: They cared about their students and showed a direct, action-oriented interest in their lives. They believed in their students, and their students responded with the self-belief they needed to succeed.
I’d be surprised if anyone who has achieved any measurable success in life wasn’t influenced at some point by a Mr. Gorson. Who is that for you? If he or she is still around, now’s a good time to drop them a note with one word that will brighten their day: Thanks. Then go be a Mr. Gorson to the people in your life.
