19 Teachers Who Went Above and Beyond for Their Students

Most of us can name the teacher who changed something for us: the one who noticed when we were struggling, made a dull subject come alive, or simply believed we could do better. Education research backs up that feeling. Studies of what happens inside schools consistently find that the quality of the teacher in front of the class matters more for student achievement than any other school-related factor, a point summarised by the RAND Corporation.

Test scores tell only part of the story, though. The teachers in this collection went further in ways no spreadsheet would capture. One drew the whole world freehand on a whiteboard. One turned her wedding into a celebration with her pupils. One taught Microsoft Word on a chalkboard because his school had no working computers, and another opened a free school under a metro bridge in Delhi.

The photos spread on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and Imgur, and several of the stories were later picked up by news outlets. Where we could confirm details, we have added them; where a post has never been verified, we say so. Credit for each image goes to the person who shared it.

Lessons students will never forget

Good teaching often comes down to imagination: finding the hook that makes a topic stick.

Photo credit: Haley Curfman via Facebook

Haley Curfman, a second-grade teacher in Oklahoma whose school had no art programme, gave her class paint and markers and let them decorate her plain white dress with things that made them happy. Hearts, rainbows and a marshmallow man covered the fabric. When she posted the result in February 2018 she called it a great project and an even better keepsake, and teachers around the world copied the idea.

Photo credit: rhyndzu via Imgur

Without a wall map to hand, this geography teacher drew the continents freehand on the whiteboard, and did it remarkably accurately, complete with lines for the equator and tropics. It is the kind of quiet skill that years in a classroom produce.

Photo credit: TheDoomOfDeath via Reddit

A college chemistry instructor turned up to class dressed as Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned criminal from the TV series Breaking Bad, complete with the character's pork-pie hat and goatee. The lecture slide behind him nods to the show's plot. Students who saw it are unlikely to forget the lesson.

Photo credit: bigbuttock via Reddit

Science is easier to love when it comes with a bit of theatre. This physics teacher runs an outdoor demonstration in a lab coat and a purple wizard's hat, a reminder that a sense of fun can be part of serious teaching.

Photo credit: unknown user, via Imgur

A history teacher dressed in the white surcoat, red cross and chain mail of a Knight Templar, the military order founded during the Crusades. Dates and battles written on the whiteboard behind him suggest a lesson on the medieval period brought vividly to life.

Photo credit: Groene Hart scholen via Facebook, Groene Hart scholen via Facebook, Groene Hart scholen via Facebook

A biology teacher at a Groene Hart school in the Netherlands, widely identified in news reports as Debbie Heerkens, taught anatomy wearing a full-body suit printed with muscles, bones and organs. Her pupils could see the location of each structure on a real, moving body rather than in a textbook diagram.

Photo credit: unknown user, via Imgur

A world history slide on the geography of ancient Sparta, with a still from the film 300 and its famous line "This is Sparta!" pasted over the map. The facts are all there: isolated, ringed by mountains, near the sea, with fertile farmland. The movie reference just makes them easier to remember.

Teachers who made every child feel included

Photo credit: teach_2_succeed via Twitter

Kinsey French, who taught children with Down syndrome at a school in Louisville, Kentucky, invited her pupils to be part of her June 2016 wedding. The girls served as flower girls in white dresses and the boys as ring bearers in suspenders and bow ties, and the photographer said they spent most of the reception on the dance floor. French said her students deserve the same chances as any other class.

Photo credit: Ana Bárbara Ferreira via Facebook

According to the Facebook post, a teacher in Brazil changed her hairstyle to match a young pupil who had been teased about her natural curls, telling her that today they both looked beautiful. The details have not been independently confirmed, but the photo of the two smiling faces says plenty about why the gesture mattered.

Photo credit: Chris Ulmer via Facebook

Chris Ulmer, a special education teacher in Florida, began each school day by spending around ten minutes giving every pupil a sincere compliment. He said the ritual noticeably raised his students' confidence. Ulmer later founded Special Books by Special Kids, a project that shares the stories of people with disabilities.

Photo credit: Thatguynobodyeverbuysdrinksfor via Imgur

Teachers at a school in South Carolina started a "Gentlemen's Club" for boys growing up without a father at home. The group meets to practise manners, dress smartly and talk through life questions with male mentors. The photo shows the boys lined up in shirts and ties alongside two of the teachers.

Photo credit: owls_everywhere via Reddit

When a student's babysitter failed to show up, she brought her four-month-old daughter to a college lecture. As the baby grew restless, the professor took her in his arms and kept teaching, holding her for the rest of the class. The post came from the professor's own child on Reddit.

Care that goes beyond the classroom

Photo credit: Terevok via Reddit

A kindergarten teacher set up a "comfort closet" at her school, a stocked set of shelves where children from struggling families can quietly pick up shampoo, soap, toothpaste, deodorant and clean clothes. Basic hygiene can make the difference between a child feeling confident or ashamed in class.

Photo credit: Whitney Achievement Elementary School via Facebook, Whitney Achievement Elementary School via Facebook

Carl Schneider, a teacher at Whitney Achievement Elementary School in Memphis, Tennessee, was photographed walking his young pupils home after school, holding hands along the pavement. The school shared the pictures on its Facebook page to show the care that safe routes home require.

Photo credit: unknown user, via Reddit

Knowing a student was sneaking a cigarette in the toilets, this teacher simply pulled up a chair and sat waiting outside the door. No shouting, no drama, just a very awkward moment ahead for the student. Sometimes the calm approach is the most effective one.

Photo credit: robbinsc via Reddit

This emotional embrace was photographed after the EF5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, on 20 May 2013. The man was described in the post as a teacher who had found one of his students in the wreckage. The storm destroyed Briarwood and Plaza Towers elementary schools and killed seven children at Plaza Towers, where teachers had sheltered pupils in hallways as the walls came down.

Photo credit: thecake_is_a_lie1 via Reddit

According to the Reddit post, this teacher in Iran visited a pupil with cancer in hospital every day, sitting outside his isolation room and talking to him by phone so he would not fall behind with his lessons. The story has not been independently verified, but the image of patient, everyday care is moving all the same.

Teaching with almost nothing

Photo credit: unknown

Rajesh Kumar Sharma, a grocery shop owner originally from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, could not finish his own science degree for lack of money. In 2006 he began teaching two children he saw playing in the dust beside a Delhi Metro bridge under construction near Yamuna Bank. The Free School Under the Bridge now serves more than 300 children aged four to fourteen, in separate shifts for boys and girls, with volunteer teachers and walls painted as blackboards.

Photo credit: Owura Kwadwo Hottish via Facebook, Owura Kwadwo Hottish via Facebook

Richard Appiah Akoto, who posts as Owura Kwadwo Hottish, taught information technology at Betenase M/A Junior High School in Sekyedomase, rural Ghana, where there were no working computers. He drew a Microsoft Word window on the chalkboard in coloured chalk and explained each part. After the photos went viral, Microsoft invited him to its Education Exchange in Singapore, where he received a standing ovation, and pledged devices and a full computer lab for his school. The second photo shows donated computers arriving at the school.

What great teachers have in common

These stories come from very different places, from a kindergarten in the United States to a riverbank in Delhi, but the same qualities keep appearing:

• They notice. The bullied girl, the hungry or unwashed child, the boy in hospital: every story starts with a teacher paying attention.
• They make learning memorable. Costumes, a dress covered in drawings and a hand-drawn map are not gimmicks when they help a lesson stick.
• They include everyone. Kinsey French and Chris Ulmer show how belonging and confidence come before academic progress.
• They make do. Rajesh Kumar Sharma and Richard Appiah Akoto prove that resourcefulness can outrun a lack of money.

If one of these stories reminds you of a teacher of your own, consider telling them. A short message of thanks can mean a great deal to someone who rarely sees the long-term results of their work.

Sources: WTVR, February 2018: Teacher encourages creativity by letting students draw on her white dress; CBS Philadelphia, October 2016: Special ed teacher invites students to join her bridal party; Wikipedia: 2013 Moore tornado; Wikipedia: Free School Under the Bridge; Microsoft News Centre Asia, March 2018; RAND Corporation: Teachers Matter. Photos belong to the Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and Imgur users credited under each image.