When I first took a job as a teacher in New York City public schools in September 2024, I felt equal parts excitement and apprehension. I’d heard all the stories about the paperwork, the pressure, the endless meetings. But what no one prepared me for were the quiet, human moments that would change the way I saw teaching forever.

It was mid-October when I met Malik, a 4th-grader who had already decided he “wasn’t a math person.” He avoided eye contact whenever we worked with numbers and often pushed his paper away the second he made a mistake. One morning, after a frustrating lesson on multiplicative comparisons, he looked up at me and said, “Why do I have to learn this? I’ll never get it anyway.” His words hit harder than I expected. In that moment, I realized how deeply some students carry the weight of defeat and how much power a teacher has to either reinforce or release it.

That afternoon, I stayed late, replaying the lesson in my mind. I thought about all the times I’d rushed through a concept to “stay on pace” and all the times a student’s silence was really a plea for patience. The next day, I tried something new. I turned our lesson into a game built around a simple idea: Mistakes are opportunities. If a student made an error, they earned a chance to “coach” a classmate, not by giving the right answer, but by explaining their thinking, naming where they got stuck, or asking questions like, “Does this part make sense to you?” It encouraged students to talk about their reasoning, compare strategies and learn from one another.

Malik volunteered first. Even though his explanation still included an error, the class clapped for the clarity of his thinking. I watched something shift in him that day. His shoulders straightened. He smiled. He started trying again. It wasn’t just Malik who changed, it was me. I stopped measuring success only by test scores or perfectly aligned lesson plans. Instead, I started celebrating the small wins: a student raising their hand for the first time, a partner group finally working together, a quiet thank-you at dismissal. Those moments reminded me why I became a teacher: to nurture not just skills, but also confidence, curiosity and connection.

The DOE can be a demanding system. There are days when paperwork piles up, the copy machine jams and lessons go sideways. But there are also days when a student finally “gets it,” when colleagues lift each other up and when a simple smile in the hallway feels like sunlight after a long winter. Teaching, I’ve learned, is less about control and more about community. It’s about showing up, again and again, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.

Every day, I walk into my classroom and am reminded that my presence matters. Malik may still have tough days, but now he greets math with a grin and a quiet confidence. And me? I’ve learned that joy in teaching doesn’t come from perfection; it comes from persistence, patience and believing that every person’s story, including mine, is still being written.

Mr. Jordan is a second-year elementary school teacher in Brooklyn.