I’ve had some near misses over the years that keep me ever fearful of this prospect.

My smartboard used to need a projector to work — a little camera affixed to the ceiling that had to be turned on each day. The girls would clamor to push that button with my handy-dandy stick (which also doubled as a guillotine blade on Formative Day). One day, I was jokingly choosing a girl to hit the button. “Not you,” I said with a smile as I passed over one student. “Not you, you did it yesterday,” to another. “Definitely not you,” I said to the girl at my right, a very adorably petite three-foot-eight who couldn’t reach the button even if she stood on a desk.

That night, I got the ominous request for a call from her mother. “My daughter just feels as though you dislike her,” she said wearily. “Today, she said that you specifically told her that she wouldn’t get some privilege that another girl got? It felt very mean-spirited to her.”

Oh, no. I thought we were just having some Short Girl Solidarity? I felt terrible and stumbled to explain, we laughed it off, and the student and I had a great rest of the year.

I shudder to think of what could have been.

It’s always easier when the parent checks in and I know that I’m coming dangerously close to becoming a Life Ruiner. If I don’t know, I can’t fix it before it spirals, and next thing you know, I’m getting that therapy bill from a 40-something who remembers that my comment on one test was received as patronizing, and was the reason her entire adolescence fell apart, resulting in issues in high school, seminary, shidduchim, and her professional career. I hope this doesn’t sound glib; it’s a prospect that haunts me.

The incident that sticks with me most is almost five years gone now. There was a student whom I really liked and sometimes ribbed a little during class. Light and casual, usually very fun. Maybe she’d had a rough day that Thursday. Maybe I had gotten under her skin in a way that I hadn’t planned. I’m not sure. I don’t even remember what I said. I didn’t remember her reacting beyond perhaps being a bit quieter than usual that class.

I do remember bumping into her after recess, the hall empty and quiet, and her being bold enough to say, “You know, you really hurt my feelings before.”

I hurried to apologize, to explain that I meant no harm, to reassure her that I still adored her. I thanked her for saying something to me. I was relieved to have dodged a real blow to our relationship.

I didn’t realize exactly how powerful that blow would have been until Motzaei Shabbos, when the school announced that we’d be shutting down until Pesach. It was March of 2020, and we didn’t go back to school for the rest of the year. I only saw that girl again, as my student, on Zoom, which wasn’t conducive to any kind of real interactions. And I still tremble a little when I think about how the relationship could have been destroyed so cleanly with a single comment, left to fester over the course of the year.

Teaching is fun. It’s basically getting paid to talk at a captive audience for hours a day about your random interests, assuming your random interests are things like “ancient mummification processes” or “Jewish practices during the Black Death” or “that one island off the coast of India where they haven’t figured out farming yet.” Teaching is also legitimately dangerous, packed with minefields where you’d least expect them. Every wrong step can explode. Every wrong comment can destroy.

It’s a good thing we really, really love our students enough to risk it — fully armed for prevention with endless davening and a whole lot of heart.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 933)