Well, Carl is one of my seventh grade boys with a lot of gusto.He is the class clown and can even crack up teachers while they are scolding him but can also be the bully of the playground but a beloved bully. I think that he also must love school because he is usually the last person to leave school and is at school seven days a week. He also has a bottomless pit for a stomach- sometimes he is the last person at school because he sneaks to the school kitchen to eat the leftovers from that day. Sometimes my eye overlooks this because it’s hard to scold a hungry boy.
But it was a question for a while if Carl could come back to school next year because he was failing and he could be a terror with the little kids. For the first four months I didn’t know what to do with him in the classroom- walking around the classroom, starting fights with the other students. Grading the English exams for the second trimester, to my astonishment, Carl who had been scraping at the bottom in October now has the highest grade! I told Sr. Gracitane and her mouth nearly dropped and we looked at his other exams and found the same. We’ve been trying to find the source of this miraculous change. Sr. Gracitane thinks it’s because he wants to come to the Youth Easter celebration at school which lasts three days meals included. Well, Sr. Gracitane really thinks he wants to come for the food at the Easter celebration. To come the seventh graders have to have a grade 7 out of 10. I also told Carl that if he didn’t have 7 out of 10, he couldn’t be part of the volleyball team, which would be a sacrifice on my part too because he is one of the best players. Also it used to be three months ago, sitting in my room on a Saturday afternoon I would hear kids playing outside and then Carl yelling at a little fourth grader and sometimes chasing him down with a rock in hand. Now on a Saturday afternoon, I hear them playing but now the fourth graders call out Carl Carl because they want to play with him. But mostly I think it’s the grace of God and the guidance of the Sisters.
A Little Seed Makes a Big Tree 