Trevor's teacher seems to be a man in control and knows what he wants, but underneath that shell of a large vocabulary we find a man that long has been in need of things that you cannot get at a University; love, courage and someone that will simply listen. The teacher find's himself coming from sickening abusive circumstances where his own father had pleasure in burning him to what he is today, an upstanding educated citizen, but alas he is not whole and this is where Trevor came in. The teacher proposed a project and instead became Trevor's project - an unusual turn of events.
Trevors teacher finally found what he was looking for, love and trust. I'm sure his burning caused a multitude of problems not immediately evident in the movie. But because of his circumstances, he was able to possibly prevent the same abuse of trevor, so with out thinking about it, he helped someone else through his experience after he talked with Trevors mom.