The grades are all in and the graduation processionals have been marched. As the school year comes to a close, and after classes have finished with a frantic rush, there’s a moment of calm as the dust settles.

The thing that catches me off guard every year is a sense of loss when students aren’t here for the week in between spring and summer semesters. The break is nice, but I’m struck by how these humans I’ve spent 15 weeks getting to know are suddenly just gone. Thing is, I like them, and I wonder what they’re up to.

Inevitably, I’ll run into a former student at some point. Orbits intersect in this community frequently enough that I’ve come to expect it happening in unexpected places and unanticipated ways. It could be the hardware store while looking for a bucket, or while running on a trail in the foothills a few days after the term closes. Or, often enough, it’s in a school where I witness the former learner as a teacher. Or it’s in the doctor’s office where my long-ago student is checking my skin oddities for tumors.

In these encounters, there’s often a moment of hesitation, that quick double-check to make sure we really know each other out of context. Then there’s maybe some awkward greeting that I welcome. And then, many times, there’s a pause before a student says something like, “I’m not sure you remember me — I didn’t do as well as I could have in your class.”

I have a hard time convincing students of this, but I want to document this fact here in the written record to be forever recorded in print and on the internet: I don’t remember how well you did in my class, and I especially don’t ever remember your grade. I truly don’t care.

This sounds strange. We spent all that time figuring out if you could get assignments in on time, or if there was an extension we could work on, or if there was some extra point we’d missed. Sometimes you asked for extra credit; the answer was always no.

It might seem counterintuitive that, while I was the person with the sharpened red pencil evaluating whether you’d get a B- or a C+ or anything else, that final mark really doesn’t matter to me. Students are surprised when I tell them this, but there are so many more things that matter.

I remember that you sat in the front row, or that you sat in the back row, or in the same seat three tables back in the second chair to the left, and that you had this sketchbook that you were always recording ideas in even before class started.

I remember how you’d asked what more could be done for your grade, and we talked about how you had been caring for your mother and her ordeal with cancer. We both recognized that there are more critical things than physics. So, while I couldn’t give you a different grade, I still think so much more of you.

I remember projects that you contributed to, the extra bit of effort and creativity that you documented in a video for your class presentation. I remember the time you taught the class to dribble a soccer ball. I remember that face you made out of the blue, followed by that question that stopped me short and changed the nature of the whole class discussion. I remember the two of you coming to my office and you’d help each other analyzing forces, the ones in the textbook and the ones you used to prop each other up.

Once, a student brought me a box of tissues after a previous visit when they’d broken down in tears and didn’t have a way to wipe them from their face. I’ve kept tissues stocked ever since because physics and life are both hard.

I’m grateful for what I’ve learned from you. I remember persistence and compassion, students being kind, being collaborative, being thoughtful, being tired, being resilient, being human. I didn’t give you a grade for this because all this is so much more important than what goes on your transcript.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah.

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