I periodically forget how important what a teacher says is to students, how one throw-away comment can stick with them. I don't necessarily feel responsible for their emotional reactions to such comments, but it's important to keep in mind that comments, especially negative ones, can have an impact far out of proportion to their intent.
That was brought back to mind today when I read this article:
Swimmer Penny Oleksiak won three medals for Canada at the Tokyo Olympics over the course of the last two weeks, giving her seven total Olympic medals.
The 21-year-old is one of the most decorated Canadian Olympic athletes and with that came a message to her high school teacher on Tuesday.
"I just googled ‘Canada’s most decorated Olympian’ and my name came up. I want to thank that teacher in high school who told me to stop swimming to focus on school (because) swimming wouldn’t get me anywhere. This is what dreams are made of," she tweeted.
"Also in reference to my last tweet no shade at all towards teachers in general, my sister is a teacher and I see her inspiring kids everyday.. Most of my teachers saw the vision and pushed me towards it. That one who constantly dragged me down though,, WOAT (Worst of All-Time)."
I don't think she was really thanking that teacher!
At a small-town high school in rural Idaho, a substitute teacher got mad and said, "You kids will never go to Stanford!" One of the students, the daughter of Hungarian refugees, had never heard of Stanford, but decided to go there to spite the teacher. Not knowing any better, she applied only to Stanford. She got in, with a full scholarship. I heard her speak at an alumni event.
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