The Moment a Student Told Me I Was the First Teacher Who Got It

It was a Tuesday afternoon. We were packing up at the end of a lesson when Priya, quiet, year nine, never quite made eye contact, stopped at my desk and said, without any preamble: 'You're the first teacher who actually gets it.'

Then she left. I stood there for a moment with her folder still in my hand, trying to work out what had just happened.

What 'getting it' actually meant

I thought about Priya's words for weeks. I was not doing anything radical. I had stopped cold-calling her when she had not had time to prepare an answer. I had sent her the questions in advance when I knew she would be presenting. I had stopped treating her processing time as resistance and started treating it as information.

To me, these felt like basic accommodations. To Priya, apparently, they felt like being seen for the first time in nine years of school. That gap between those two things has stayed with me ever since.

What it taught me

I think about what Priya said whenever I feel like inclusion work is too hard, or the system is too resistant, or I do not have enough time to do any of it properly. Because the truth is that what she needed from me was not a perfect system. It was not unlimited resources or a revolutionary new framework.

What she needed was someone who noticed. Someone who made a few small changes and stuck with them. Someone who treated her nervous system as a fact about her, not a problem with her.

If you are reading this and you work with young people: you are probably already doing more than you realise. And somewhere in your room, there is probably a Priya who has not yet found the words for what you mean to her.