My name, Nadezhda, means "hope" in English. I am a teacher from a small Siberian town.

Last summer, I was lucky to visit Brighton and Hove, which stole my heart. I enjoyed each moment of staying there: The sea with its smell and noise, the calm and clean streets and, best of all, the helpful and hospitable people.

I am a good specialist and good psychologist (I thought) but, in Hove, I was taught a valuable lesson.

I was there with a group of students. We studied English in Shoreham College and went on excursions. One day, we went to Brighton by railway and had a great time.

A quarter of an hour before we were due to leave, one of my students, Sasha, suddenly remembered he had left his rucksack in one of the shops. All his documents and money were in it.

Of course, I was shocked by this news and almost ready to say who and what he was and what I thought about him.

But our young Shoreham teacher, Alex (it's a pity I don't know his surname), simply took the boy by his hand and hurried to look for the rucksack.

After ten minutes, they returned with it. "What did you say to Sasha?" I asked Alex. "Nothing," the reply was.

I was surprised and only later understood a very important thing. If Alex had shown a negative attitude to the situation, Sasha would have had different feelings - guilt, shame, regret - and would have tried to find reasons to explain them.

But at that moment, Sasha felt only gratitude, he was understood and he was helped.

Thank you, Alex, for your excellent lesson to "a good teacher and a good psychologist".

-Nadezhda Kondratova, Mezhdurechinsk, Kemerovo, Russia