Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

The Gift of a Moment

Motivation plays a significant part in success. Where this asset is concerned, most of us are indebted to one teacher or another in our lives, since there are times when good teachers spend as much time as parents with a student. Some of time, however, a few words or a gesture is enough to motivate a student for a lifetime.

From where I stand, if I were to write about all the teachers in my life who shaped me, it would be volumes of material. Instead I'll concentrate on one incident that made my heart jump.

The school I attended, during my teens, was on a campus including high school, junior high, and other buildings for student activities. One day, when I was in eighth grade, the regular teacher for one of the subjects had called in sick, and a high school teacher, a budding author who had just received high acclaim for her book of stories, volunteered to take over for two consecutive periods. She was a young and beautiful woman, and her success dazzled our eyes. We admired her from afar, as she taught just a few hours of high school lit to seniors and had nothing to do with the junior high kids.

During the first period, she gave us a subject, a prompt actually, and asked us to write an essay. During the second period, she gave us another thing to do, while she looked over our essays. I can't remember what the assignment was. It might have been a search inside the books for certain information, or something else. I was busy doing the work and didn't notice her watching at me. When I raised my head, I caught her looking at me, holding up a paper in her hand. "Is this yours?" she asked. I looked behind me to see if she meant someone else, but she hadn't.

I panicked. One of the school rules was, if you forgot to put your name on a test or any other paper, no matter how good your paper might have been, you got a zero. She must have seen the terror in my eyes. She stood up and walked to me, showing me the paper. My name was not missing. So what was the problem?

My heart started to beat rapidly. "Yes, it is mine," I said in a meek voice.

She stretched her hand, took mine in hers, and shook it. Now the whole class was watching us.

"Congratulations," she said. "This paper is the best one. It shows maturity beyond your age. Keep it up. Don't let it become a flash in the pan."

At this, I don't know what my face showed, but it must have signaled the greatest joy I ever felt. I guess she didn't want me spoiled either; so, after turning to class, she faced me again. "One success doesn't mean a thing. You can be successful once, or maybe twice. If you stop and don't go after it all the time, to what good is it?"

Years later, when I was in a motivational relaxation group, we were asked to recall the moment we felt the most successful, in our entire lives. Immediately, that moment in eighth grade sprang to my mind, as it still does, because that one specific moment was a very special kind of joy. No matter what I did or what happened later on in my life, nothing can ever match up to that.

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Prompt: Did you have a teacher who inspired you?