Who are you inspiring?

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If you are a teacher, then you will probably have inspired many young people. In a recent blog post I wrote about inspiration - something I think everyone needs in their lives.

Children especially, can be inspired by small things that teachers do. Often, we don't appreciate the impact we can have on the lives of our students. In the busyness of the day, we don't always realise how inspirational some of our actions can be. You never know who you are inspiring....

I met up with one of my former youth group members a few years ago (yes, I used to run youth groups in the 80s and 90s) at an event on the Plymouth seafront. Jonathan Lloyd trained as a teacher and is now head at a school in Wales. I've been in touch with him on social media since. It's amazing to think that the young lad who used to attend my youth group is now all grown up, a fully qualified teacher, and a school leader too! Jonathan has turned out to be quite an inspirational teacher, and revels in the success of the children he has taught over the years. Here's one of the stories he related recently on Facebook, with a call to other teachers to reflect on their own impact:

Who are you inspiring! I’ve just had probably one of my most humbling experiences today. Whilst sat having dinner at the Eden Centre a young man approached me, he said ‘Mr Lloyd, do you remember me?’ and I said ‘I’m sorry I don’t'. 

He told me his name and I had taught him over 18 years ago in my first class. He told me that during this time he had little self esteem, his parents were dysfunctional and his academic standards were low. He said that you showed me care and compassion and you had a saying that ‘Success comes in Cans, not Cannots!'

His face as a boy came back to me and his backstory !

He then told me that I worked with him daily and by the time he left he had moved from an SEN child to a good average. I also asked him to come to Cricket practice and he represented the school team at Trent Bridge in a National Final!

He said that I made him feel special and wanted ,and as a result he wanted to become like me. He then told me he had come back to his parents for Christmas and is now working as a PE teacher in Birmingham. Wow!! He was so excited and thrilled about what he was doing and said it was because I had been an example to him all those years ago. I felt so humbled by what he was saying! It reminds me every day of the privilege I have as a Headteacher to positively influence so many children’s lives for the good! Our every action as an adult can affect the children in our daily reach. I suppose the question is ‘Am I still doing this and are you?

NB: If you have any similar stories of inpiration that you would like to share, please post them in the comments box below. 

Who are you inspiring? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.