Once upon a time, I was a teacher

Once upon a time, I was a teacher. My job was very simple, to manage a class of forty students, who were, and still are, my friends. If a student was an A-grader, she or he was my friend; if a C-grader, I had no problem. Grades never defined my relationship with them. I always believed that each would do well, in their own way and time, irrespective of being A or C. Teaching, I later realised, was not about producing achievers, but about nurturing confidence, curiosity, and kindness. What endures is not the report card, but the bond of trust that continues long after the classroom has dissolved.