10 times teachers' impactful actions garnered them their students’ respect instantly

A teacher's sincerity and dedication.

Certain actions and qualities exhibited by teachers can instantly gain respect from both students and colleagues. It can be something as simple as providing good advice to a student or showcasing unwavering dedication to their job. Moreover, students end up respecting teachers who possess a genuine passion for the subject that they teach. Such teachers leave a lasting impression on students. u/ApacheAirCover asked the community, "What did a teacher do that made you automatically gain respect for them?" and the responses will surely make your day. 

1. Giving out a personalized mini notebook 

I went to a small charter school for middle school. Our English/literature teacher was brand new to teaching, if I remember correctly she was only 22 which seemed old at the time. She always did her best to be so cheerful and make learning fun. But the thing that truly solidified her spot as my favorite teacher was that for every student’s birthday, she would give you a personalized mini notebook. It was just a simple small composition notebook but she had filled the first couple of pages telling me how much she loved having me as a student, how far she knew I would go, and other affirmations. It seems small but as a 13-year-old who had a crappy home life, it made all the difference in how I acted the rest of the year. u/Voiceisaweapon

2. Shaving their own head

When I was in the 1st grade my mother gave me one of MANY really awful haircuts. The first day back at school afterward the kids picked on me horribly. So much that I ran out and hid. The principal found me and we went back to the classroom and he asked me to wait outside for a minute while he talked to the class. He then walked me to his office and bought me a Coke. The next day - first thing in the morning - we had an assembly with the entire school and he walked up on stage with his head shaved completely bald and talked about bullying and the like. Some twenty years down the road he had retired and I ran into him at the local college. Shook his hand and said, "You probably don't remember me, but...," "Yes I do," he interrupted and said my name and the event. The man was and is a hero in my eyes. u/hopgeek

3. Consciously choosing teaching as a career

I had a teacher in elementary school who was prone to outbursts. He had a short fuse, at least compared to every other adult I knew at the time. A year or maybe two years later, the school had a talent show. Like a big one, in the gym, in front of everyone. One of my classmates was really into music and wanted to play a drum solo. Our teacher had mentioned off-hand that he used to be in a band and played drums, so my classmate asked him (sort of dared, like kids often do with adults) to play a solo in front of the school And he did. He f****** rocked it. But that's not what made me respect him. Turns out the band he played for was a very successful one and at the time quite a popular rock band. He left just before they became popular because he wanted to be a teacher. He chose to teach kids over the chance at fame and fortune and didn't regret it. u/dasoberirishman

4. Organizing events outside of school 

I had a physical education teacher who organized basketball, volleyball, handball and football tournaments, organized 'Olympic games' for the local kids and taught us dancing on weekends. On his own. Just for us kids, because we lived in a remote place without many activities and things going on. He was more than a simple teacher. Reddit. Gee, when you think PE teacher, you don’t generally think of the dancing type. You think about some high-strung coach-type guy who yells at you for running laps too slow. Not that that’s the only type, but that’s the stereotype. u/Whiteums

5. Wanting to prepare them better for the real world

This will probably get lost, but I want to shout out this teacher of mine. She was our AP English Language teacher for our senior year of high school. On one of the first days in her class, she explained how she went from being a kindergarten teacher to a high school senior teacher. She always saw off her cute and happy kindergarten kids, but as they grew up and came back to visit her, a lot of them came to her troubled and dissatisfied with their lives. It made her really emotional about how people had treated these kids she loved so much, how she couldn't afford to see kids so disconnected from life and how she didn't want them to suffer as they headed out toward college and their adult lives. So she changed curriculums and started teaching seniors. I respect the hell out of her and she'll always be one of my favorites. Truly like a mother to all her students. u/NuluProton

6. Offering them lunch 

When I was a kid we had to purchase these red punch cards to get lunch at school. Unfortunately, we didn't have that much money so there were times when my punch card would run out and I wasn't able to eat for a while until we got enough money to repurchase another one (why nobody in my family applied for assistance was beyond me). I had one teacher who noticed I wasn't eating every day and she would bring an extra sandwich and offer it to me whenever she saw that. I really didn't understand how kind that was when I was a kid but obviously as an adult, that was such an amazing gesture of kindness. u/sk8erguysk8er

7. Not giving trick questions

I had a professor who once stated that she doesn't believe in trick questions. Students trick themselves up enough without the professor helping them along. She never did put trick questions. Well, she was a chemistry professor and her questions didn't involve a lot of extra details that weren't necessary. Like during gas laws, there was specific heat and other useless stuff to figure the final volume and such. All details were related to the section she tested. u/Nicholi417

8. Refusing to teach from costly textbooks

It was a professor, but she said she wasn't going to have a textbook for the class. Basically, she didn't respect the textbook representatives trying to take the pharma approach to force kids to buy a $170 access code. Instant respect. You just had to show up to the lectures and she'd teach you what you needed to know. u/enchiladacheese. I had a prof like that. The only textbook we had was his own. First day of class he said if we had already bought it to return it as he would print out the parts we needed as we went. Saved all of us close to $200 that semester. u/agent_kmulder

9. Not dismissing a student's comments

Junior year of high school, English class. We were discussing a story we had read. One student (let's call him Carl,) made a point. The teacher was dismissive and basically said Carl was wrong. The next day, after we took our seats, the teacher said, "Before we begin, I was thinking about what Carl said yesterday. I was wrong to dismiss it so quickly. Let's take a look at that again." He then went on to repeat Carl's point and initiate a conversation with the entire class. After the conversation, it became apparent Carl's point was indeed off base, but I was impressed the teacher publicly owned his mistake and went down the path he should have. u/Andreas_NYC

10. "Just do what you can" 

I moved out of home during high school. It was stressful, to say the least. I started to fall behind in assignments, I would be absent for days at a time, I missed tests, etc. I ended up explaining the bare minimum of my situation to my English teacher, and their response always stuck with me."Just do what you can." It may not seem like much, but right then and there, for a sixteen-year-old kid who felt like simply living was a burden, it was everything. u/jodehleh. I actually have stress dreams about this kind of thing, like I've been missing classes and falling behind for some reason, that feeling of dread is no good at all. Awesome of your teacher to understand. u/BLUElightCory