What baller move can an educator make to command instant respect?

I went to a small charter school for middle school. Our English teacher was brand new to teaching.

If I remember correctly, she was only 22, which seemed ancient at the time. She always did her best to be so cheerful and make learning fun.

But the thing that truly solidified her spot as my favourite teacher was that for every student's

birthday should give you a personalized mini notebook.

It was just a simple small composition notebook that she had filled the first couple of pages

with telling you how much she loved having you as a student, how far she knew I'd go and other

affirmations.

It seems small, but as a 13-year-old who had a crappy home life, it made all the difference

in how I acted the rest of the year. When I was in the first grade, my mother gave me one of many

really awful haircuts. The first day back at school afterwards, the kids picked on me horribly,

so much so that I ran out and hid. The principal found me and we went back to the classroom,

and he asked me to wait outside for a minute while he talked to the class. Then principal found me and we went back to the classroom and he asked me to

wait outside for a minute while he talked to the class. Then he walked me to his office and bought

me a Coke. The next day, first thing in the morning, we had an assembly with the entire school and he

walked up on stage with his head shaved and completely bawled and talked about bullying and

the like. Some 20 years down the road, he had retired and I ran into

him at college. Shook his hand and said, you probably don't remember me, but, yes, I do, he interrupted

and said my name and the event. The man was and is a hero in my eyes. I had a teacher in elementary

school who was prone to outbursts. He had a short fuse, at least compared

to every other adult I knew at the time. For instance, when several of us in class weren't listening, he'd throw a piece of chalk against the wall to get our attention. Honestly, we just thought he was crazy. A year or maybe two years later, the school had a talent show, like a big one, in the gym in front of everyone. One of my classmates was really into music and wanted to play a drum solo.

Our teacher had mentioned offhand that he used to be in a band and played drums, so my classmate asked him, sort of dared him, like kids often do with adults, to play a solo in front of the school. And he did, he fricking rocked it. But that's not what made me respect him. Turns out the band he'd played for

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