After we had all safely returned to camp, the other kids headed straight for the pool. Before joining them, I found our teachers, who were on pool supervision duty. The teacher who’d saved my life stopped me before I could say anything.

“We both got really lucky today,” she remarked, “but it’s probably best that we don’t mention it ever again.” Back then, I could not understand why she wanted to keep her heroic deed a secret. Later, I realised that my near miss might have created some extra “paperwork”.

I kept quiet. Even my parents didn’t know.

After I left school, I managed to reconnect with my own teacher a couple of times, but I never got to properly thank the other teacher. When I was old enough to drive, I went back to my old primary school but was told that she had retired. Many years later, when I thought it would be a good idea to write to her, I sadly learnt that she was gone forever.

Looking back at my time in primary school, the only remarkable thing I ever did was fall over. However, when I slipped, it was a teacher who was there to catch me. I’ve come to realise that this is the very essence of teaching. Many of our greatest heroes, our best teachers and mentors, have been the ones who have watched over us, sometimes without our knowledge, ready to catch us should we stumble.

As another school year draws to a close, let’s thank all the teachers and staff who work tirelessly in our schools, universities and training programs for what they do each day.

Loading

To all the teachers out there, if you ever get a warm fuzzy feeling out of the blue, it’s probably because, somewhere, across the fabric of space and time, an old student of yours is reaching out to you. Please know that they are thinking of you and hoping you’re OK. And that warm fuzzy feeling? That’s the inner child of a former student letting you know that, thanks to you, they turned out OK too.

Associate Professor Louis Wang is a Sydney doctor. This article is dedicated to GH and CR, both legendary teachers at Woollahra Public School.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.