The best people in life are the ones that go out of their way to understand or help you. I never thought that one of those people would be a teacher. A teacher's job is to teach students, but when they go out of their way to understand you, it's really special. The first teacher who did this for me was my second grade one, Mrs. Havens.

It was time for parent-teacher conferences, and little kid me was so excited to have my parents hear about how well I was doing. Unfortunately, they were working the week of conferences and couldn't make it. Mrs. Havens offered to stop by our house after school to do the conference since my parents couldn't make it during the day. It's not often a teacher is comfortable going to a student's house, or even cares enough to make up a second grade parent-teacher conference. I, of course, was ecstatic. Back in second grade, I really wanted my own dog. But not just any dog; I wanted a papillion. And I made sure everyone knew about it. Mrs. Havens knew I loved dogs, and she did too. In fact, she fostered dogs all the time. The evening she was supposed to come over, I remember looking out our window, waiting for her car to pull up. When it did, I yelled for my parents, and we went to get the door. When my mother opened the door, Mrs. Havens was standing there, and on a leash was an adorable little papillon. That evening Mrs. Havens not only went out of her way to come over to our house but also was thoughtful enough to bring her new foster dog, which happened to be a papillon. As a kid, the only thing I ever consistently wanted and begged my parents for was a papillon. It meant everything to me. I don't think I can even explain with words how that made my whole year.

Clark has so many amazing teachers. This is just one of many times a teacher has gone out of their way to understand me. But it's one that I will remember for the rest of my life.