You can have lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, and curriculum all updated and on point—but if students don’t feel heard, none of it takes hold.
That’s the whisper everyone great teacher finally learns. And it’s something that J.K. Lynch comes clean with unflinching honesty and laughter in his memoir, You can’t make this stuff up: Stories of a tired former teacher.
When Lynch began teaching, as many of us did, he thought structure and discipline were the answers. Rules, routines, consequences—that’s what he thought would gain him respect in the classroom. But somewhere between a mouse in his desk, a kid attempting to bring a dog into school, and an unforgettable summer stock production where kids cast him as the Grinch, reality set in.
These children were not seeking perfection. They were seeking connection.
During his early years, Lynch acknowledges that he did not always do things correctly. He was strict, a tad too rigid, and set on keeping order. But with time—and after plenty of trial and error—he learned something life-changing: students do not learn from someone whom they don’t trust.
They learn when they feel secure.
They participate when they feel listened to.
They develop when they understand that you care more for them than for their test scores.
In You can’t make this stuff up: Stories of a tired former teacher, Lynch remembers incidents familiar to many teachers. The child who behaved poorly every day until one day you just asked, “Are you okay?” The class that bugged you all week but was sweet when you were ill. The child who gave you lip every morning, who then confided in you months later about something going on at home.
Teaching is messy. Gorgeous, draining, wonderful—and messy.
And it also happens that the most influential tool in a teacher’s arsenal isn’t a trick from a training or a shiny new app. It’s the human elements. The patience. The sense of humor. The capacity to say, “I see you,” when a student is going out of their way to not be seen.
Yes, standards do matter. Yes, curriculum does matter. But ask any grown-up who survived school what they recall most, and it probably won’t be the Pythagorean theorem. It’ll be the teacher who made them feel important. The one who joked with them. Who offered them a second chance. Who didn’t quit.
That’s what relationship-building is all about. And it’s not extra. It’s necessary.
So if you’re an educator who sometimes wonders whether the effort is worth it—whether those little moments of kindness are doing anything—trust me, they are. They always are.
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