When I was in my fourth year of teaching, I was also（and am still）a high school track and field coach（田径教练）. One year, I had a student, John, who entered my class when he was a junior. John changed to our school from Greece, and seemed to be interested in sports, so I encouraged him to join our track team. I explained to him that even though he had never taken part in it before, I did believe that he could do well in any event, and that I would be willing to coach him in whichever ones interested him. He accepted the offer, and began to work hard at every practice.
About a month later, I had found out from other sources that John was a first-class tennis player, winning various junior awards in his home country. I went to him asking, "John, I really appreciate that you came out for the track team, but why didn't you play tennis instead?It seems that would interest you a lot more, since you're so good at it."John answered, "Well, I like tennis, but you told me that you believed in me, and that you thought I could do well in track, so I wanted to try it for that reason." From then on, I often remember my student's reply. I told it to a friend and she suggested I write it down to share somewhere with more teachers. No matter how critical（挑别的）students can be of themselves, I've found that a simple "I trust that you can do it! "can go a long way!
