Most of us know that teachers are everyday heroes. A Chicago teacher proved the point recently. Chicago teacher LaShonda Carter always told her students she’d be there for them if they needed her.
Well, Carter did not disappoint when one of her students needed her, even though it was three years after the student had been in her class.
Carter was having trouble sleeping one night last week and was looking through Facebook when she started chatting online with Larresha Plummer who is 18.
Plummer shared with her former teacher about some rough times she had being going through, and mentioned that she wanted to attend a job fair on Thursday. The problem was she had no idea how to get there.
Plummer had just had a baby, and she knew that taking her 3-week-old baby on public transit was a little risky for the infant’s health.
“There was no way I would have let her take a baby in a bus, I told her right away that I would pick her up in the morning,” Carter told CNN.
Carter picked them up a few hours later, and took Plummer to the job fair. She also stayed in the car with her student’s baby while Plummer went to apply for jobs.
When she was done at the job fair, Carter took her to apply for Woman, Infants and Children (WIC), a program for mothers in need to get nutrition education and grants.
Carter shared the special moment on Facebook and asked “her village” to help Plummer and the baby in any way possible.
“Sometimes as a teacher, our jobs go beyond the classroom… she’s a young teenage mom, and she needs some help,” Carter said on her post. “I’m gonna do what I can, as much as I can as an educator, but know I can’t do it all by myself.”
Carter and Plummer shared a special bond and remained friends, even after Carter took a teaching position at another local school.
“We always talk, even though I left Harper, I still keep in contact with all of my students,” Carter said.
Carter’s main wish is for Plummer to know that she can still be successful even though she’s a teenage mother, and that being a teenage mother does not equal failure.
As for Plummer, according to her former teacher, she now has a job and is planning to attend college this fall.