I started teaching when I was nine years old, volunteering for an after-school program at the Superkids Association.

There I first learned how to teach reading and writing and, now that I am 15, I also teach reading comprehension to other children. When you are a teacher, your main job is to provide the best education possible to your students, but in some cases, the students actually teach you how you can be better or they make you feel happy when you are together. From my point of view, kids can have a large positive impact on their teachers’ lives.

I experienced this last year, when I taught comprehensive reading to my student, Lucy. I remember the moment when I went to the third-grade classroom to meet my new students and I first saw her. At first, she looked like a shy and quiet kid, and at that moment I thought it might be hard to have a long conversation with her. However, when the day of our first class arrived, we went to the school yard and I started to talk with her and get to know more about her. She answered every question and even started to ask me about myself, and with each question we began to trust each other more. It was awesome, and I felt very proud, because for me, it’s very important that my students trust me and feel comfortable with me during and after class.

At the beginning of our lessons, I noticed that she read slowly and made some mistakes when writing. I remember the first book we read was about a dog who lost his family and his greatest wish was to have a loving family. She loved that story because it made her laugh, and she loved to imagine the possibilities of what could happen on the next page. That book had some hard words that she didn’t understand, so I taught her, and the way that she learned the words’ meanings was by writing them in her notebook and using them in a short story or a sentence. Before taking her back to her classroom, I gave her some homework about writing sentences with some words that she didn't know yet. I also prepared some dynamic games and challenges, because she learned better by playing or doing something that she enjoyed. She always returned to her classroom happy and the teacher thanked me for everything I was doing to help her.

The satisfaction that you feel when someone recognizes that you are doing a really good job is awesome. One day, after I took Lucy to her classroom, her teacher told me that she had made good progress with comprehensive reading and she had improved her orthography. She was very proud of how much Lucy had advanced in such a short time, and I felt even prouder of all Lucy’s effort and a wonderful sense of fulfillment for all my hard work teaching her.

Lucy has been one of my favorite students. She is amazing in all the ways you can imagine. One of the things that I really love about her is that she always has a smile, and she is very kind with everybody. She is very persistent; when she doesn’t know how to do something, she tries again until she achieves her goal, and I admire that. From my point of view, she has so many things to show to the world and she will be able to do incredible things with all the potential she has.

Lucy was my student and my teacher at the same time. She taught me that it does not matter if someone says something negative about myself and my abilities. At the end of the day, I am the only person who knows who I am. Lucy is strong and she knows how to convey her strength, because in the most difficult situations she always smiles and says that she will be able to overcome any obstacle. She taught me that we should never lose our perseverance, and if we fail, we should smile and try again. Some people will say that those are insignificant things, but for me they are very important.

At some point in life, most teachers have a student who teaches them how they can be their best self. Every student has strengths, but it is indisputable that some of them have outstanding qualities and will teach you wonderful things that will serve you for life. Life as a teacher is exhausting sometimes, but is one of the best experiences since you receive the most genuine feelings and unique love of all — the love and smile of a kid.