Powerful Lessons from Julie Hasson's Collection of Teacher Stories

Teacher Stories

Julie Hasson and Ken Futernick discuss some of the powerful lessons learned from the teacher stories she writes about in her new book, Safe, Seen, and Stretched - the Remarkable Ways Teachers Shape Students' Lives. Julie shares an inspiring story about her own teacher, Mrs. Russell, who, Julie says, laid the foundation for everything she has achieved. Julie also tells the story of an engineering student who recalled what it was like when he and his elementary school classmates first got a chance to play volleyball with the "big kids." They'd hit the ball so hard and it got so rough that eventually the younger ones quit playing. But a teacher noticed what was happening and, "in all his genius," suggested a different way to play the game. He challenging them to hit the ball back and forth at least twenty times. To meet the challenge, the students taught one another how to keep the ball in the air, and from then on, at every recess, they all played a new version of volleyball -- the "the infinite game," they called it. It was here, as a young elementary student, that this engineering student first learned the power of collaboration, a practice he says is serving him well as an aspiring scientist.