One Student Is Enough

May 03, 2026

I’ve been volunteering now for a month as a Citizenship Exam Prep Coach. Every session starts out the same. When I arrive at the library, I grab the big canvas pouch where all my teaching materials are stored and head to the classroom. I push open the door, flip on the lights, and nudge the doorstop into place to keep the door ajar. I begin setting up for the session. I write my name and the question of the day on the whiteboard. I flip through the big binder to the tab for the session and pull out sheets for my own use. Then I wait for the students to show up.

This class is a free service the library offers. The librarian has asked me each time if it’s worth my time to come and teach 1-2 students when their hope was for me to teach 6.

I think it is.

One student is enough.

These people who showed up, they matter.

I recognize that the librarian was asking a logistics question, but I heard it as a values question. That has always been the root of things for me.

I remember when I was teaching at UCLA. I had a class full of students, and I remember thinking: if I had an effect on one student, that meant the quarter was worthwhile. I was teaching an elective to graduate students. I knew our courses were often taken for the easy A. But I also knew one student mattered. One was enough.

I don’t recall when I first thought this. It could be the result of my morning pages and my working through my thoughts on what I did at UCLA. But the belief has been there a long time. I left UCLA in 2017.

I came home from the library today and thought about how I’d been counting things lately.

Followers.

Views.

The numbers that are supposed to mean something.

And I realized: the abstract crowd doesn’t matter. The specific person in front of you does.

From the students who show up at the library, I learn a bit about them during the time we spend together. Their willingness to show up and learn. Their willingness to help each other. Their gratitude for what I’m doing.

I met a man with a master’s degree who still feels stupid—his words—for confusing words such as come and came.

I met a woman who can already read and write three other languages and now needs to learn English.

I met another woman who came with her four-month-old boy and asked if I would mind if he also stayed. I don’t mind.

While I am volunteering, nothing matters. I don’t check my phone. I don’t pay attention to the time. I listen carefully to the student and I gently correct. I constantly offer words of encouragement. I give them space to ask questions. I let them leave first before I wipe down the whiteboard and gather my things to put back into the big canvas pouch.

It has been a month and I make the trek to the library every Saturday morning. I teach from the lesson plans. The person in front of me will always matter. Even if it is one.