This Special Ed Teacher’s Lessons Will Inspire You [VIDEO]

For Sadie Guthrie, being a special education teacher is about looking at the long term. Sure, she teaches the curriculum, but she also sees value in teaching her students real world skills that they’ll be able to use for the rest of their lives. Her tool? A coffee cart.

This touching short documentary from SoulPancake tells the story of the mobile coffee cart that Guthrie set up to teach her students about responsibility and teamwork – to teach everyone at San Francisco’s Lawton Alternative School about compassion. Guthrie’s students take on tasks such as taking coffee orders from teachers, riding public transport to pick up baked goods and taking the cart around the school.

The most beautiful part of this video come right at the end – when Guthrie talks about how she sees the positive in each and every one of her students. In her words, “it’s less about what are you struggling with, and more about how awesome can you be?”