- I love looking into their hearts and saying, hey, I'm glad you showed up today.

(upbeat music) My name is Neal Johnson.

I teach at American Fork High School, and I teach theater arts.

- I think Neal Johnson is one of the most amazing educators I've ever met.

Whenever somebody says, Neal, how do you do this?

Or how do you do that?

He says, I don't know.

I don't know.

And then I finally pressed him on it one day and he goes, it's just the gift.

That's what it is, it's the gift.

And Neal has the gift.

(upbeat music) - Going into college, I went straight into acting.

I was on cruise lines, I was going into New York.

I was getting cast in things.

And then I just knew.

I was like, I'm not doing what I'm meant to do.

There's something about me that is inherently supposed to give back.

And for me, I have found so much joy in teaching the art of drama.

(upbeat music) - Neal has the ability to help students see into themselves and see who they are.

- As a teacher, I feel like my best moments are the quiet moments in the background.

I can get up and do shows, and I love doing that, but that's not my place.

That's not what I'm supposed to do with these kids.

I'm supposed to get out of the way and help them become the artist.

(upbeat music) - He has the ability to draw the best out of students and to help them to accomplish things that they didn't know they were capable of, which in turn helps them develop self-esteem.

- My drama room has no windows, so I can create an atmosphere I hope, where they feel safe and free to risk.

- They're comfortable in his classroom.

They're comfortable with him.

They see him as a person who is their advocate, not their enemy.

- We're in between those awkward years of junior high and college when they're supposedly adults.

And the idea of helping them find value and strengthen their foundation and widen that, those interactions remind me that it's good to be alive.

I don't take those for granted at all.

(upbeat music) I try to look at every year and every show and attach it to the group in front of me - When he produces plays, he doesn't just produce the play.

They look at how this play relates to life, relates to them.

- And during COVID one of the biggest things I learned having to teach online was that creativity was just starving.

And most of them just wanted that human interaction or that relationship.

So watching them rise above it and find light in the darkness and find hope, I got goosebumps of my arms.

(upbeat music) - He and I have shared many, many students.

And in the course of that time, I've had several of them tell me that they've had times where maybe they have felt not worthwhile or have felt like their life wasn't valuable to the point of being concerning.

And they have credited him with saving their lives.

- Those are the days that get you through the hard days.

There's a lot of things that I think when it comes right down to it, a teacher's role is to help them see the next step or to see their own worth.

And if I can be the mirrors to the soul of somebody else and look at them and say that you actually are valuable to me, that right there I think is those golden moments that get you through the hard times.

(upbeat music) - I think it's true for every single human being, we want somebody who loves us and understands us and cares about us and believes in us.

And Neal does that for his students.

- I hope that they feel valued and needed and necessary because their thumbprint is still on my heart.

And I hope that mine is on theirs as well, because I love them.

(upbeat music)