A role model is a person who inspires and encourages us to strive for greatness, live to our fullest potential and see the best in ourselves. A role model is someone we admire and someone we aspire to be like. We learn through them, through their commitment to excellence and through their ability to make us realize our own personal growth. We look to them for advice and guidance.

A role model can be anybody: a parent, a sibling, a friend but some of our most influential and life-changing role models are teachers.

When you think of the type of teacher you’d like to be, who comes to mind? The math teacher that helped you conquer fractions? The English teacher who wrote great comments on your stories? The teacher that helped you discover a new sport, hobby, talent–or maybe even nudged you down your current career path?

Interested in developing your skills as a teacher? Explore online education short courses designed to give you an in-depth understanding of various skills in teaching.

Those are the teachers we’re celebrating through our YouTube channel, My Teacher, My Hero. Together, we’re paying homage to the teachers that have played such an integral part in shaping our lives, and to their importance in shaping the next generation of educators.

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” — Marlene Canter, My Teacher My Hero

Teachers follow students through each pivotal stage of development. At six to eight hours a day, five days a week, you as a teacher are poised to become one of the most influential people in your students’ life. After their parents, children will first learn from you, their elementary school teacher. Then, as a middle school teacher, you will guide students through yet another important transition: adolescence. As children become young adults, learning throughout middle school and into high school, you will answer their questions, listen to their problems and teach them about this new phase of their lives. You not only watch your students grow you help them grow.

“We think of teacher-heroes that taught us the academics but we don’t often think of those teachers that taught us life’s lessons.” — Maria Wale, My Teacher My Hero

Much of what students learn from their greatest teachers is not detailed on a syllabus. Teachers who help us grow as people are responsible for imparting some of life’s most important lessons. During their initial school years, students encounter, perhaps for the first time, other children of the same age and begin to form some of their first friendships. As a teacher, you will show your students how to become independent and form their own relationships, you will carefully guide them and intervene when necessary. School is as much a place of social learning as academic learning, and this is true, not only in our early years of education, but all the way through college. Armed with a supportive and well-educated administration, there is no limit to the influence a teacher can have on one, or many, students’ lives. Though a teacher’s influence on the social sphere of school lessens as students mature, those early lessons still have an effect on how they will interact with others in the future.

Teachers are founts of experience. They have already been where their students are going, undergone what they will go through and are in a position to pass along lessons, not only regarding subject matter, but lessons on life.

Teach.com has been speaking with award-winning teachers from across the country to hear their stories and, hopefully, find out a bit about what it is exactly that makes them great. If you are currently a teacher or thinking about becoming a teacher, take a look at some of the Teacher Profiles below to learn a bit more about what can make a teacher great.

Feeling inspired? Take these next steps:

Have a teacher you’d like to talk about? Submit a video!

Here’s how: Take a video of yourself discussing your favorite teacher. You can use the below prompts to get your wheels turning.

1. Choose an example of how your teacher changed your way of thinking or acting.

Did your teacher encourage you to take risks? To overcome self-defeating thoughts or behavior? Did he or she help you speak up more in class, or have more patience with solving problems?

2. Tell us how these changes have influenced your life’s direction.

Did they help you uncover a unique talent, or steer you away from a dangerous life path? How did this change your eventual direction in life?

3. Share an interesting story.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words. And your story doesn’t have to be serious! A teacher’s impact often shines through the most.

And of course, remember to say thank you! Watch the rest of the My Teacher, My Hero series on YouTube.

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