alt Hacker NewsI want to share a bit about this becuase it is dear to me.
My public high school was a "Geography / GIS magnet school" because some unnamed retired geography teacher donated a very large sum to make it happen. I was an underachieving student with no ambitions to go anywhere, doing just enough to pass. The geography program teacher pulled me aside and encouraged me to sign up for Grade 10 GIS the next year. It became my first academic passion and my entire life pivoted.
I studied GIS/remote sensing every year. I participated in Skills Canada a few times, eventually going the full distance by winning gold at the regional and provincial levels. I was accepted to University for GIS/Remote Sensing. I earned a BES, defended a thesis, earned an MSc, won a national award for GIS, and got into remote sensing + robotics as a career, which I'm still doing ~15 years later.
I don't think I have the words to really describe just how thankful I am for everything teachers and professors did along the way to support and encourage people like me.
I had a math teacher do something similar. He recognized that I was avoiding things by hanging out in his classroom. He decided that if I was going to stay in a maths room, I "clearly wanted to learn more maths" so he taught me more maths. And I soaked up as much as I could and it set me on a path as well. I'm thankful I had 3 teachers that took time and provided me that little extra that lasts a lifetime