Lending a Helping Hand
When one of Steve Raquel’s students became a single mom and her childcare fell through when she had class, he didn’t hesitate to offer some help.
“So I just said ‘hey, I know when you bring your baby in you are going to be feeding it, getting it calm, all those things. So once you are done with that let me have the baby. That way you can take notes.’ So I just wanted to take that burden off of her for a little bit, even in class,” explained Raquel.
Soon after, a video of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign adjunct lecturer teaching with baby Elaina quickly went viral.
What It Means for Moms
“I’m not the first; I hope to not be the last,” he added. “But I hope that single moms, whether they’re young students or older moms who want to get an education, that they feel like the environment is changing and that teachers are there to support them.”
A show of real class and caring.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
