Every new teacher knows that feeling when a new school year starts — the glass-half-full Augusts when you dream of the boundless potential of your incoming students; the vow to work harder to make this the best year yet; the idealistic expectations you set for yourself.

Every teacher also knows another feeling — anxiety when the annual honeymoon period comes to a close and you realize imagination and reality couldn’t have been further apart.

Nine days into the previous school year, my 5th-grade student Taquan was already on a schoolwide list for low attendance. I tried a few strategies, to no avail.

Attendance wasn’t Taquan’s only issue. Countless conflicts, angry outbursts and threats of suicide were also serious concerns. I began to pray for an answer, for a solution, for a change for him. I volunteered my time to tutor him privately after school. I contacted the Administration for Children’s Services repeatedly. Then, one night at 10:30 p.m., I got the phone call that changed everything.

“Ms. D? I don’t know what to do. I need help,” Taquan pleaded.

“What happened?”

“Those kids. The ones I told you about. I was at the park and I looked across the street and they were running toward me. They tried to jump me.”

“Wait, start over, why? What did you do? Are you OK? Does your mom know?” I flooded him with questions.

“I’m OK. I ran into the projects behind mine. But I’m scared.” I could hear the tension in his voice.

“How are you getting to school tomorrow?”

“Walking.”

“I’ll get you in the morning. You’ll have to wake up early and I’ll call you when I’m outside. When we get to school, we’ll figure it out, OK?”

“OK. Thanks, Ms. D. Really, thanks ...” His voice faded away.

Every new teacher is all too familiar with the next feeling: Defeat.

Feeling threatened after that night, Taquan’s fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and he entered survivalist mode. He joined a gang at the school and began carrying a screwdriver. He insisted he needed protection.

After everything I had done for him, I began to wonder, “What can I possibly do for my students? What hope do I have for making a positive impact?” The answers were unclear until the day I read “Tuck Everlasting” to them.

“No connection, you would agree, but things can come together in strange ways,” wrote the author, Natalie Babbitt. “The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A Ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.”

This idea of myself as a hub in my students’ lives gave me the power to continue on.

“You did this for me, didn’t you?” Taquan probed a few weeks later.

I’d arranged for a group of six high school students to visit my class. Their task was to discuss gang awareness and offer advice for how to avoid the lifestyle.

“What do you mean?” I responded.

“You asked them to come here for me. You got sick of me fighting all the time and wanted me to hear this.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, smiling.

“I get it, in case you’re wondering,” he continued. “I’m gonna stop. I won’t do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“All of it.”

It’s my hope that every new teacher sticks with the job long enough to know the next feeling: joy.

It didn’t happen overnight, but Taquan began attending school five days a week rather than four. He started going to an after-school program to do his homework rather than hanging out on the streets. He learned to cope with his anger well enough to avoid physical altercations. And I recently found out he went from a Level 1 to a Level 2 academically.

Taquan still faces difficult choices, and I know his path ahead won’t be easy. But for now he remembers the things I’ve tried to instill in him and is receptive enough to the relationship we’ve built to seek advice and an escape when he needs it.

Every new teacher will go through myriad emotions as they set out on their journeys. But it is joy that new teachers should wait for with bated breath. It is joy, after all, that brings meaning to our profession and supports the belief that we can and will change lives.