I was once the shyest student in this very school. I remember sitting quietly at the back, too afraid to raise my hand, watching classmates who seemed so much more confident than me and wondering why I couldn’t be like them.

The distance between who I was and who I am now didn’t come from comparing myself to anyone else. It came slowly, one small step at a time, one “little braver than yesterday” at a time. That’s the confidence I’ve built in myself.

Every day in the classroom, something reminds me of that shy girl I once was — a student hesitating to speak, afraid to be wrong. And in that moment, I don’t see a “less confident” child compared to the others in the room. I see myself. I see a chance to give them what I wished someone had given me back then: the space to grow at their own pace, without being measured against anyone else.

That’s what I try to teach now — not just the lesson on the board, but the quieter one underneath it: you don’t have to be like the student next to you. You only have to be a little better than you were yesterday.