Every teacher has heard the question “Does this count?’’ and every teacher has the same answer: “Yes. Everything counts.’’

Contrary to popular belief among many young students, it is not just high school that “counts.’’ Elementary school counts. Middle school counts. Life counts.

I promise you — the things we are teaching you are things you need to know. See these vocabulary words? They’re your nails. See this paragraph assignment? That’s your hammer. See these math problems? They’re your screws, nuts, and bolts. See these history discussion questions? They’re your screwdrivers. See this science lab? That’s your wrench. We are trying to fill your toolbox.

When you get to high school, they’ll ask you to build a house. Some of you will open up your toolboxes and you’ll be all set, ready to go. Some may just have a nail or a hammer in the toolbox. And that won’t be fun and the house won’t be pretty.

“Filling the toolbox’’ happens in the classroom and it counts. It’s the class discussions, it’s listening with a true desire to understand the speaker, be it the teacher or a classmate, it’s the willingness to risk sharing, risk being wrong. Filling your toolbox happens when your mind connects a character in literature to a true life person studied in history or — better yet — to yourself.

Filling the toolbox also happens out of the classroom. This counts, too. The classroom, sadly, limits us. Even working in groups, everyone has to take turns and there may be times you don’t get to ask your question. If that happens, go home, keep exploring. A classroom by itself can never fully satiate a healthy curiosity. And remember, the only person who can limit your curiosity is you.

Ideally, we educators would stop for every question, run with them the way young mothers and fathers do when their toddlers point to things to be named. “Dat?’’ the toddler might ask, pointing to a red garden rose. And the parent will say, “Rose. That’s a rose. Here, feel it.’’ And then the child will feel the silky soft petal. “Here, smell the rose.’’ And the toddler will smell the rose.

Unfortunately, we cannot spend all our days smelling roses and much of our learning requires hard work, hours grinding away at math or writing, science, or history. But if we teachers have done our job, we will have strengthened your minds, developed your perseverance, and supplied you with some answers — helped you fill your toolboxes.

More importantly, we should have inspired you to ask, to seek, and to chase down the things that matter to you. Because, as I like to remind my own sons, if you want lives that matter, you have to do the things that matter to you.

What matters to most kids and to most adults, too, is people — getting along, having friends. About 12 years ago, my middle son, then a seventh-grader, said to me, “Mom, I don’t know why I need to go to school past fifth grade. I can read. I can write. I can add, subtract, divide. I understand percentages and I get how to add money. Why do I have to keep going?’’

I laughed. “Honey, you keep going to get the girl.’’

“What?’’

“No girl in high school or college or beyond is going to want to spend time with a guy whose thinking stopped in fifth grade.’’

While we both laughed at my answer, it’s true. Simply put, we learn to make ourselves better people, better company for those who choose to spend their days with us. And how we spend our days, in and out of the classroom, is who we become.

And who we become, counts. Who we become is everything.

Rea Cassidy teaches seventh-grade English at Hingham Middle School. She can be reached at rcassidy@hinghamschools.org.