I See Them From Afar

By Natasha Nurse / February 23, 2026

I remember watching the moment unfold as a player from our community celebrated a goal with his hockey team on the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic stage. It felt like more than a highlight. I kept thinking about what moments like this mean for young people growing up in our community and how powerful it is when someone sees possibility in them early. Scenes like this reach far beyond the hockey rink. They echo into classrooms and the quiet moments where students are still figuring out what they can become.

That medal did not just represent victory. It represented years of persistence that began in the same neighborhoods where young people now sit in classrooms just blocks away. As I watched, I wondered what our students imagine for themselves and whether someone already among us is still waiting to be seen.

I could not watch it without thinking about my own students.

Community has always shaped how I see my work. The students I teach are not distant from me. They are part of the same spaces that raised me and continue to surround me. That closeness carries responsibility, but it also carries hope. Each day I am reminded that extraordinary paths can begin in familiar places. Possibility often grows quietly long before anyone notices.

From the first day of school, I tell my students something simple but deeply true. I see them from afar. Not only as they are today, but as who they are becoming. I do what I do because of what I believe is possible for them, even when they cannot yet see it themselves.

I notice the quiet thinker. I notice the hesitant voice. I watch the student who is still searching for confidence.

Teaching has never been only about content for me. It has been about belief. I hold a vision of students that goes beyond assignments and grades. Long before they step into future roles, there is a period when belief must be borrowed. Sometimes that belief comes from a teacher.

Students may not remember every lesson, but they remember how they felt in spaces where they were seen. They remember who spoke possibility into them. When classrooms make room for thinking and voice, something begins to shift. Students start to believe they are capable of more than completing work. They begin to see themselves as thinkers and contributors whose presence matters.

If we want belief to live in our classrooms, it has to show up in small moments. Not in big speeches or perfectly planned lessons, but in how we show up while students are still finding their footing. Sometimes that looks like a brief conversation in the hallway or a quiet check-in that lets a student know they matter.

Small moves that make belief visible:

Name one strength out loud.
Choose one student each day. Say what you see. Keep it simple and true.

Make room for student thinking.
Ask one question that has more than one possible answer. Let students talk before you teach.

Treat mistakes like information.
When a student gets it wrong, try “Tell me what you were thinking” before you correct.

Offer belief before results show up.
Say “I’m not giving up on you” or “I can see you figuring this out” even when the work is messy.

Have one small check-in.
A quick “How are you today?” or “You good?” can be the moment a student remembers.

The Olympic moment reminded me that extraordinary paths often begin in ordinary places. In quiet moments that seem small at the time, belief is taking root. If students leave our classrooms with even a small sense that they are capable and worthy, then something lasting has happened. Long before they arrive at who they will become, someone must see them from afar.