I think I know why I admired the teacher

I think I know understand why I admired that teacher he made me feel very safe and all my life I felt like getting close to anyone was a liability. I avoided making friends my whole life because of my fear of being humiliated. He made me feel human and when I realised I could feel safe and protected I became addicted to that feeling he gave me hope. I started to see that I could get close to people when I saw his kind heart it just made me admire him. I know your not meant to be friends with teachers but I also know he made me open my heart he made me see that people can be caring and have compassion. I guess I wanted to thank him after all this time I've come to realise how much the lack of judgement and being heard felt like. He made me realise I didnt have to be afraid of feeling or being close to anyone. Sometimes we meet people and they change how we think of the world.

It sounds like he is a great teacher.

Teachers can be incredibly important, even pivotal, in their students' lives.

You can be friends with teachers long after the teacher/student relationship ends. I am friends with two of my most important teachers from childhood/adolescence, one a man and the other a woman. I am 53. There was a hiatus between when the teacher/student relationship ended and when the friendship began but now they are some of the most crucial people in my life, and I in theirs, especially for the man who is lonely.

I am also friends now with the leader on my tough group, and our age difference of 9 years which was big when I was a teen has almost evaporated now that we are both adults and not he an adult and I a teen. With him, too, there was a long hiatus between when the tough group ended and when several decades later we connected on Facebook and started visiting each other (we live on different continents now).

When I visit my hometown, I always make a point of visiting these three people, the former teachers and the former youth group leader.

So it is entirely possible as long as you allow a passage of time after your student/teacher relationship comes to a closure.

He was one of the only people that wanted to understand my problems and never judged me he just lifted a hand and help me. In all these years going to multiple professionals being abandoned by mental health organisations he's done more for me then they ever did he just listened. He will never know how much he changed my life with his care. It's a great loss to me.

Why will he never know?

Oh its just he works somewhere else and I go to a Tafe more locally

What is Tafe? I do not know.

Australian Adult Education?

Yes Tafe stands for Technical and further education

You can still write him a letter of gratitude and send to his new place of employment. He will be touched by your gesture.

Yeah maybe

I just want to be able to study and not have to worry about it being too stressful if I find studying to stressful how am I ever gonna work. I just want to forget all the pain I've experienced through the years with learning and just be employed and live my life.

I relate to this. My school days weren’t my best, and when you’re stressed it’s difficult or even impossible to learn. That’s not your fault, it’s natural.

I’m so glad you had the positive experience with this teacher. I also had a teacher who was attuned to the individual needs of his pupils- those type of teachers aren’t too commonplace in my experience but oh boy the difference they can make.

I saw my good teacher a month ago, it’s 40 years ago now and he wouldn’t recognise me, I wish I’d had the nerve to talk to him but I didn’t. Every time I thought about what I’d say I got overwhelmed, I could feel the tears. If you did want to thank yours it would be great.

Yeah I just don't think he'd really care or bother to read it. I just think I'm another student in a sea of students I just hope that this time around when I do my cert 4 in business that I have better time at least there isn't all those difficult subjects but I hope I can deal with the study load.

I see what you’re saying re your teacher but he doesn’t sound like the kind of person who wouldn’t care. It’s up to you though.

Good luck with the study !

You might have been another student in a sea of students, but if you send him a letter of gratitude and explain what he meant in your life, you will stand out from that option and become memorable to him.

It doesn't matter how I feel anymore. I just want to move on with my life and forget everything in my past and just be free to be happy.

Being a mediocre teacher is easy… It’s hard to be a really great teacher. I’ve definitely had my share of mediocre, horrible, and amazing teachers. One of my friends’ dad remembered a teacher who told him it was unacceptable for him to drop out in fifth grade and join a gang, because the teacher thought my friend’s dad was better than that. He did it regardless, but he still remembered that teacher years down the road. My friend got the teacher’s name and called him up to say you for how he did not lose faith in her dad even when he was making a bad decision.

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Reminds me of a teaching assistant i had back in third grade. I had absolutely zero friends and was constantly bullied and i used to spend recess alone, while he watched over all of us. I started talking to him and asking him riddles and the first few times he would give me riddles in return but i think he ended up getting tired of me since i latched onto him lol but i never realized and i used to talk to him everyday during recess to tell him different riddles

I remember years later at summer camp i did the same thing to my camp counselor