I Wish My Teacher Knew

CW: Mental health, Physical violence, gore or abuse

I Wish My Teacher Knew

(A story in memory of my mother)

I hadn’t planned for that morning to change anything. No revelations, tears, or heaviness that would cling to my chest long after the day was over. Just another lesson - one of those ordinary, predictable ones where I count the minutes until the bell rings.

My desk was the same as always: chalk dust, open notebooks, a cold cup of coffee, and a polished black sign with my name on it written with white letters. How strange did it sound to me when I read it aloud: Teacher Jelly Lacman. Like it wasn't me.

From the window, I could see autumn leaves dancing across the schoolyard. It was a total contrast from inside, where the hallway buzzed with the familiar rhythm of backpacks slamming and laughter echoing off the walls. And, as every morning, my students spilled into the classroom—some running, some dragging their feet, some tripping over their own shoelaces and self-doubt.

I smiled that teacher’s smile I’d perfected over the years - warm enough to be kind, but never too much. My mother, Teresa, taught me that. When she was present in this world, she used to say, “A teacher must know how to look at each child as if they’re the only one in the world - but never so closely that it scares them.”

My mother was a teacher who listened to children’s silences. They told her secrets no one else ever heard. As a child, I thought they were exaggerating, inventing stories for attention. Now, I know better.

That morning, I wanted to break the routine. “Let’s play a little game,” I told them. “Finish this sentence: I wish my teacher knew that...”

A few giggles as a first reaction. Some rolled eyes. One or two sighed dramatically. I smiled. They thought it was just a warm-up exercise. But when I said those words, I didn’t know I was about to open thirty small doors to thirty invisible worlds.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of pencils scratching paper. Whispers started suddenly. And silence returns.

“Can I write more than one thing?” one girl asked.

“Of course,” I said. “There are no limits.”

Some wrote quickly. Some chewed their pencils. A few just stared at the paper, frozen. I know that look - the look of a child who can’t afford to be wrong, even in a game. When they finished, I collected the papers, still smiling. I had no idea I was holding their lives between my fingers.

The first note read, “I wish my teacher knew that my dad is in prison and I haven’t seen him for years.”

I froze. The edges of the paper were crumpled, as if the child had gripped it too tightly. I looked across the classroom, wondering which face it was. I couldn’t tell - and maybe that was for the best.

The second one said, “I wish my teacher knew that sometimes I skip dinner because Mom works late and I don’t know how to turn on the stove.”

A lump rose in my throat. My mother’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of my mind: “Every child has a kind of hunger, and it’s not always for food.” I felt chill, like she was right beside me.

The following note read: “I wish my teacher knew that my sister sleeps with me and sometimes wets the bed. That’s why some kids say I smell.”

I look at another: “I wish my teacher knew that I come to school because it’s quiet here. At home, there’s always yelling.”

Another one that hit me straight in the chest: “I wish my teacher knew that I pretend not to care when others laugh at me, but inside I feel like I don’t exist.”

And the one that broke me: “I wish my teacher knew that I just want to sleep one night without hearing my mom cry.”

By the time I finished reading, no one spoke. Some stared down at their desks. Some wiped their faces with their sleeves, pretending to scratch an itch. The room felt smaller. Heavier. Like all the noise in the world had gone missing.

***

After class, I sat at my desk long after they’d left. Their backpacks still hung on chairs, bright and innocent. Inside them - pencils, books, half-eaten sandwiches, and tiny invisible wounds. I gathered the notes and placed them carefully in my bag. Closed it quietly, like I was tucking away something sacred.

That evening, walking home through the scent of roasted chestnuts, I thought of my mother. How she used to sit surrounded by notebooks at our old kitchen table, her soft voice always steady. “In every generation,” she told me once, “there’s always one child who stays silent the loudest. When you find them - protect them.”

I never asked who hers was. But now I think… maybe it was me.

The next day, the children were different. Not drastically. Change doesn’t announce itself with trumpets. It tiptoes. They shared snacks without being asked. Spoke more gently. Stopped teasing the quiet ones. Started looking at one another - not through, but at. The classroom had softened somehow, like everyone was learning to move carefully around each other’s invisible bruises.

***

Weeks passed. The papers stayed in my bag. Sometimes, when the room was empty, I’d take them out and read them again - each one a prayer disguised as a sentence. But guilt began to creep in. Because I couldn’t fix any of it. I could listen, understand, and care - but I couldn’t undo what the world had already done to them. That’s the truth no one tells you about teaching - you’ll carry thirty little hearts every year, and you’ll never stop wondering which ones you failed to heal.

One afternoon, as I was checking homework, a small girl with two braids came up to my desk. “Teacher, Jelly,” she whispered, “can I tell you something?”

I nodded.

“You said we could write anything,” she said softly, eyes on the floor. “My mom told me not to, but… I’m glad you know.”

I didn’t say anything. I just hugged her, briefly - because the rules say we shouldn’t, but sometimes you have to break the small ones to honor the big ones.

That night, I dreamed of my mother.

She was sitting in her old classroom, surrounded by children. I stood at the door, a child again, afraid to enter.

“Why are you crying?” she asked.

“Because I’m not good enough,” I said.

She smiled. “A teacher doesn’t need to be perfect. Just present. Children don’t need heroes - they need witnesses to their silences.”

***

Winter came before I noticed. Snow clung to the windows of my classroom. The kids were writing their New Year’s wishes. As the bell rang, one boy came up and placed a folded paper on my desk.

“I wish my teacher knew that I’m proud to be her student.”

I couldn’t speak. I just smiled the same small smile my mother used to wear - the one that held an entire world in it. That’s when I understood. The lesson wasn’t for them - it was for me.

I learned that children aren’t blank pages waiting to be written on. They’re stories already in progress, and we’re only allowed a few lines in their chapters. The most powerful words a teacher can ever say are “I see you.”

***

Years have passed since that day. I inherited my mother’s desk, her books, and even her old schoolbag that still smells faintly of chalk and lavender. It felt like she was here yesterday. One afternoon, while cleaning, I found a folder in her drawer - full of children’s handwriting. Their voices, frozen in ink.

One said, “I wish my teacher knew that I’m not stupid, I just read slowly.”

Another read: “I wish my teacher knew that my dad doesn’t love me - but it’s okay, because I love me.”

And I understood. Maybe I didn’t become a teacher like my mother Teresa - by chance. I just picked up where she left off.

Maybe every woman who walks into a classroom carries the shadow of the first teacher she ever loved - and every one of us is just trying, in our own way, to hear what children can’t quite say out loud.

Now, every year, on the first day of school, I stand before a new generation with the same smile, the same trembling hope. And I write on the board: “I wish my teacher knew that…”

They laugh. I wait. And I listen. Because I know there will always be one child who writes something that changes the way I see the world. And when the bell rings, when the room is empty and still, I gather the papers, place them gently in the drawer, and whisper, “Mom, I kept your lesson alive.”

Because you taught me that the most remarkable thing a teacher can do is not to teach a child to read or write, but to teach them that their voice matters.