We touch other people’s lives simply by existing. – JK Rowling

Because I am an educator, I get to see first hand, the lives I touch, but I never realized just how large that scope really was.  Before I became a teacher, I worked as a aide, and went to various classes with different students to provide academic and behavioral supports.  Because I was always a teacher at heart, I didn’t limit my support to just the students to which I was assigned.  If any student needed help and I could provide it, I did.  But it wasn’t until I obtained my classroom position that I realized just how many lives I touched.  Because I work in a Special Education Program, I’m rather insulated from the rest of the school/student population, but between classes, teachers generally stand in the hallways outside of their classrooms to create a bond with students.  I never realized how much I impacted other students not in the special education program until students began stopping when I was in the hallways asking me why I wasn’t in their classrooms any longer and telling me how much they missed me. I don’t remember interacting with most of these kids, but they remember me.  I touched their lives in some way and it had a huge impact on them.

We have to be careful because any interaction we have with a person can impact their lives in ways we can’t conceive.  My lesson learned?  Always try to keep my interactions positive.  You never know what is going on in someone’s life to cause them to act they way they are and you never EVER know how your actions are going to impact them in the long run.