What Makes A Great Teacher: Lessons From The One Who Changed My Son’s School Experience
I stood outside Room 3 on a drizzly October Tuesday, twisting the strap of Jax’s too-small dinosaur rain boot I’d fished out of our entryway closet that morning. Ten minutes earlier, the nurse had called to say he’d had a meltdown in math, locked himself in the bathroom stall, and wouldn’t come out. I’d braced for this for months: Jax, my 8-year-old with math anxiety, had been coming home with crumpled worksheets and stomach aches every Monday through Thursday since the school year started. I was already mentally drafting the email to the principal asking for an IEP meeting when the classroom door opened.
Ms. Lopez answered, flour dusting the cuff of her flannel, the same chipped “World’s Okayest Teacher” mug I’d seen her carry every morning in her hand. She didn’t look harried or annoyed. “He’s okay, he just needed a minute. Come in,” she said, stepping aside to let me in. Jax was curled up in the back reading his well-worn dinosaur graphic novel, coloring a picture of a T-Rex skull, no red puffy eyes or hunched shoulders. I launched into my usual apology, explaining that he’d frozen up when called on to solve a simple addition problem in second grade, the class laughed, and he’d avoided speaking up in math ever since. I told her I’d tried everything: flashcards, reward stickers, even an overpriced dinosaur math workbook I’d ordered off Amazon, and every homework session ended in screaming. I was at a loss.
She pulled Jax’s math folder out of his desk and flipped it open to show me. Every worksheet had small edits in blue pen: the original word problem about Sally and her 12 apples was crossed out, replaced with “A T-Rex has 12 sharp teeth. If 4 fall out, how many does he have left?” Every problem was swapped to center on dinosaurs, the only thing Jax thinks about 90% of the day. “He told me he doesn’t care how many apples Sally has,” she said, shrugging. “But he cares how many teeth T-Rex has. So I just swap the nouns. Takes 30 seconds before class every morning. No big deal.”
I stared at the worksheets, surprised I’d never thought of it. I asked if she wasn’t worried he’d fall behind on the required curriculum, if he needed to learn to do the work the way it’s written. “The point of third grade math isn’t to memorize word problems about fruit,” she said. “It’s to learn that you can do hard things. If changing the nouns gets him to practice, that’s a win. I don’t need him to do it my way to get the concept.”
That moment changed how I think about teaching and parenting, honestly. I’ve had 11 years of experience with school-aged kids (Jax has an older sister), and I’d met plenty of fine teachers. But I’d always bought into the idea that great teachers are the ones with perfect lesson plans, high test scores, and Teacher of the Year awards on their wall. Ms. Lopez is not that. She forgets to send home weekly newsletters half the time, she lets kids eat snack at their desks even if it crumbs all over the carpet, and she lets them read graphic novels during silent reading when most teachers at our school insist they’re “not real books.” But over the year, I’ve watched her small choices add up to something that no polished lesson plan could ever match.
The lessons I’ve taken away from her are small, concrete things any parent or teacher can start doing tomorrow, no extra training or budget required. First, if a kid refuses to do work, don’t assume they’re being lazy or that they can’t do the work. Nine times out of 10, it’s just that the work doesn’t connect to anything they care about. You don’t need to redo the entire curriculum or plan a big special project. Just swap a few details. If your kid loves Minecraft, do fractions with how many blocks are in their base. If they love soccer, do addition with how many goals their favorite team scored this season. It takes 30 seconds, and it shifts the whole energy from a fight to something they’re willing to try.
Second, don’t force public vulnerability to “build character.” So many people I know say if a kid is scared to speak up, you have to push them to do it anyway, or they’ll never get over it. Ms. Lopez lets Jax write his answer on a sticky note and pass it to her instead of saying it out loud, no questions asked, until he’s ready. Last month, he volunteered to share a dinosaur word problem he’d made up himself, and that was his call. If she’d forced him six months earlier, he’d still be hiding in the bathroom stall. This works for parents, too: if your kid doesn’t want to hug a relative or say hello to your friend at the grocery store, don’t force them. Let them wave, and talk about it later when they’re calm and comfortable. It’s not rude, it’s respecting their limit.
Third, don’t make a big deal out of bad days. When Jax locked himself in the bathroom, Ms. Lopez didn’t call the counselor, write him up, or make him apologize to the class for disrupting things. She just sat on the floor outside the stall and talked to him about the new T-Rex skeleton the city museum just got, until he was ready to unlock the door. I used to think I had to process every meltdown immediately, talk through all the feelings, and turn it into a teachable moment. Most of the time, kids just need to reset with something they love, then move on.
Jax is finishing third grade now. He still has bad weeks. Last week, he hid in the coat closet during a district math test, and Ms. Lopez just brought his clipboard and a pencil to him and let him finish there. He’s still not going to win any math awards this year. But he doesn’t get stomach aches before school anymore, and he comes home talking about the new word problem he made for Ms. Lopez every Friday. Next year, he’ll go to middle school and have six different teachers. I don’t know if he’ll get another Ms. Lopez. But I know what small, good teaching actually looks like now, and what small, good parenting can look like too. It doesn’t require fixing everything overnight. It just requires changing one noun, and waiting.
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