I was only twenty and weighed about 102 pounds when I started teaching. One of the students in my first speech class was twenty-one years old and weighed about 290 pounds. The principal brought him to my class, told him to take a seat and said: “We have to get rid of this kid, this year … so pass him no matter what!”
This was my first experience as a high school teacher. I was one day on the job. Because “pass this kid, no matter what” was against my principles, I said to the principal, “No, I will pass him because he deserves to pass. He will pass, I guarantee it.”
This “kid” was the youngest of the seven brothers. They were all as big as he was, and they would not let him quit school until he graduated. He had taken every class in the school and was teetering on a D average.
After everyone settled in their seats, I introduced myself, set my standards and assigned them to share something good they had done for someone else.
The Big Kid, as he was not so affectionately called, didn’t start to work when I said, “You can start preparing what you want to say.” He just sat there.
As I approached him, one of the students stopped me and said, “He never does anything. Don’t bother him.”
I thanked the student for his advice but ignored his well-meaning words and sat down beside the Big Kid. I looked him in his eyes as if I were definitely his size and said, “Let’s begin.”
“I ain’t goin’ ta give no speech,” he said with a grin to let me know that this was a very firm and absolute final resolution.
“There is no way out,” I responded as I looked at him with the same resolve, as if I were bigger, taller and stronger than he was. I also smiled, paused and then continued as if he agreed with me that he was indeed going to give that speech. (To me this was not a power of wills, but a power of right.) “Let me see, something good that you have done for someone…” We started talking and soon he told me about making a tree house for his nephew. His brothers were all carpenters and made everything around the house that anyone wanted except a tree house for their nephew. So he decided one day to do it on his own. The way he told the story was beautiful, filed with love and goodness for his nephew and with the rare insight into the needs of another. He described his nephew in every detail, and added with a smile that broke across his entire face, “That little kid would smile inside out when I’d lift him into his tree house. He’d look down at me as if I had made him King of the Mountain.” The Big Kid added shaking his head in disbelief, “You know, everyone thought I was crazy making that tree house for him on account of because he was so crippled.”
Our eyes meet. Mine filled with tears. I thanked him with a smile “inside out” for sharing his beautiful story with me and said, “I have a reward for you: you get to be…first!” Before he could say a word, I stopped the class an announced, “We have our first speech ready.” He looked terror-struck, as if he was facing the biggest hurdle of his life. I quickly ushered the Big Kid to the front of the room. “Tell it exactly the way you told me, “I whispered to him. “Have the courage to be ‘King of the Mountain’ like your little nephew has taught you.’ Encouragingly, I added, “I believe you can do this!”
After some delay, he opened his mouth to speak. His hands were on top of his head, his old torn, shabby T-shirt revealed a bulging fa stomach hanging over his pants. He twisted and turned; he was definitely uncomfortable and struggling.
I nodded my head. “Begin,” I mouthed. “No way out” … Only a way into the hearts of everyone in that class.
When he finished his speech, there was not a dry eye in the class of those sophisticated seniors and their teacher-me. There was silence. He just stood there with a helpless or hopeless expression on his face, and then the class exploded in applause as they jumped to their feet with a standing ovation. He savoured, or I should say we all savoured, the moment.
I gave him an A. Then he cried, “Nobody has ever given me an A before.”
“You gave us the gift of telling us your story,” I sniffed. “You earned the A.” From that point on you had to wrestle the Big Kid for “first speaker position” with every assignment. I have never seen anyone improve so much in my life. The students became his friends, and he became theirs. They still called him the Big Kid, but the meaning had a big heart in it, now. There was such unity and support in that class that everyone was eager to speak.
But that’s not all …
The next semester, there he was in my journalism class, front and center. We were to produce the school newspaper. Help! I had never had a journalism class in my life. I had never put together a newspaper and never worked on a year book, even when I was in high school. The students who were in second-year journalism asked me where the dummy sheets were. I said, “show them to me when you find them.” I didn’t have the faintest idea what a dummy sheet was. I studied the book and learned a lot.
But I didn’t learn half as much as the Big Kid did. It was in this class that I discovered he couldn’t read or write. I was horrified by the “pass-‘em-out-of-here-and-forget-em” policy in place in our schools at that time.
How could he do his assignments without being able to read or write?
No way out.
Okay! I accepted the challenge. To fulfil his assignments, the Big Kid collected his stories by interviewing the students. We confided in one of the second-year journalism students that he could not write, and that person wrote his story each week from his dictation. Soon other students found out about his inability to read and write, and they eagerly offered to help him, as well.
At that time, there were no teachers assigned to teach reading or writing to non-readers in high school, so the students helped him learn to read and write.
By the end of the year he could read and write. He wrote:
Something Good You Have Done for Me
Thank you. The good you have done for me, I hope I can repay to others.
The Big Kid has learned to read and to write and gets to graduate!
He received an A and the Most Improved Student Award.
Joyce Belle Edelbrock
