By Lu Yue | TFT ER Team
What happens when a classroom loses its anchor?
How do children process grief when someone they trust disappears overnight?
And how does a new teacher learn to hold a class together while still learning how to hold herself together?
This was the reality one TFT teacher faced during her first year in the classroom.
A Loss That Shook the Classroom
“You’re not my teacher.”
The child, D, hid behind the back of his chair, his voice trembling.
Only hours earlier, he had challenged her loudly in class. Days before, he had argued with classmates over classroom rules. Yet just weeks earlier, these ten-year-old children had received devastating news: their beloved homeroom teacher had suddenly passed away.
Everything happened too quickly.
The former teacher—warm, humorous, and deeply experienced—had been a steady presence for both students and colleagues. When he was gone, it felt as though a great tree had been uprooted, leaving an empty space no one knew how to fill.
And she—a new teacher who had been in the classroom for less than six months—was asked to step into that role.
Eighteen Children, Eighteen Ways of Grieving
As the months passed, she watched her students navigate grief in different ways.
Some tried to return to normal life as quickly as possible. Others resisted every change, like hedgehogs curling into themselves, using anger to protect their fragile hearts.
She tried to hold space for each child.
But in doing so, she slowly realized something else: she herself was becoming exhausted, worn thin by the effort of trying to carry everyone.
When the Teacher Begins to Break
She wanted to respect the classroom traditions the former teacher had built. She also wanted to establish her own principles.
She did not want to discipline children who had just lost someone they loved. Yet she also could not allow herself to become a target for their frustration.
So each day she entered the classroom feeling torn—moving carefully through the day, relieved whenever nothing went wrong.
Until one day, her exhaustion became impossible to ignore.
Learning to Care for Herself
“You should take two days off and go home to rest. Don’t worry about school,” the school’s academic director told her after a difficult conversation.
Only then did she realize how close she had come to her limit.
During those two days away, she finally listened to herself. She noticed how anxious, sensitive, and tired she had become.
When she returned to the classroom, something had changed. She no longer felt completely alone—because she had realized how many people were quietly supporting her.
Sometimes, caring for others begins with caring for ourselves.
Life may always hold both fragility and strength. Even after falling, we find ourselves thinking: Let’s try again.
Walking the Road Together
Later that summer, during TFT training, fellows from the same cohort shared their own journeys. Many had stumbled, struggled, and questioned themselves—but they all carried the same determination to try again.
She was reminded of Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, who stepped forward despite not knowing the road ahead:
“I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.”
And of writer Lu Xun’s words:
“Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally there was no path—yet as people walk it again and again, a road is formed.”
Perhaps teaching is like that path: uncertain at first, but made possible when people continue walking forward together.
Thank You for Walking With Us
Your long-term support helps sustain classrooms where teachers and children continue learning, healing, and growing together.
In classrooms like Cheng’s, we are reminded that children can only feel safe, supported, and ready to learn when the adults beside them are also supported. A teacher’s wellbeing, stability, and resilience are not separate from children’s learning—they are part of the foundation that makes it possible.
When teachers have the space to rest, reflect, and regain their strength, they are better able to stand beside children through difficult moments and guide them forward.
Supporting teachers is, in many ways, another way of supporting every child in the classroom.
Thank you for standing with Teach For Taiwan.To follow more stories from these classrooms, we warmly invite you to stay connected through our website, Facebook, and Instagram.
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