Portrait of an Every Day Hero

by Tom Conway

Dear Student,

I don’t want to use your name here, because I know you won’t want to be singled out for praise any more than you want to be singled out for extra help or attention. You would prefer to remain anonymous and stay in the background.  The things you do aren’t done for the sake of notoriety or popularity. I respect that. 

But you deserve every bit of praise I can give.   You are the example I wish every student would follow.  You should be popular. You should be praised.  People should recognize you when you walk down the street. Every kid in this building should strive to be more like you, as should every adult.  Honestly, I wish I was more like you.

I’ve seen you day after day, always doing the right thing but never asking for any reward.  I’ve seen you lend students pencils and help them pick up things they drop.  When a friend of yours was bullied on the bus, you spoke up and told the bully to stop.  I know it because I heard her threaten you, telling you to mind your own business and keep your mouth shut. 

You didn’t react, but you didn’t flinch.  You looked at me, shrugged your shoulders, and later said it was no big deal.  “She acts like that all the time.” 

As if that was an excuse, or justified anything she said.  Still, you took the high road when most kids (or adults) would have lost their cool, and the immediate crisis, at least, took care of itself.  The bully was trying to cause a situation, and you refused to react.  In the end, it kept you and her out of trouble, and made my day a lot easier to get through as well.   

I did my best to take care of the problem for you, but I know how those things work.  If she really wants to make your life miserable, she’ll push until she thinks you’ll break.  Somehow, though, I don’t think you’ll break.   

Just like you don’t break in class. I know you struggle.  Reading, for you, is hard, and you don’t always understand what you’ve been given to read.  You spend hours laboring over questions, only to see them marked wrong when you’re done.  A 20-question quiz can take you the entire class period, and your grade still won’t be as good as you hope. 

And yet, you don’t give up.  I’ve watched you sit there and work for over an hour, reading and re-reading every question.  I asked several times if you had questions, if you needed help.  You were polite, but refused the help.  You kept working.  A student tried to show you her graded paper, you turned it back over on the desk.  I heard what you said to her, and it surprised me.  Most kids, struggling as you were, would have at least wanted a peak, but you refused. 

“I don’t need to see your answers.” 

You want to learn.  More than anyone in this building, you want to see progress and feel the joy of success, and you want to be able to own that success.  That is the absolute pinnacle of character.    

Yet, too often, that success eludes you.  You struggle to keep your grades up, though you labor over every assignment and turn in beautiful, carefully done work.  Your test scores aren’t what they are supposed to be.  You’re labeled, and put in classes with other kids who struggle.  You’re taken out of the classroom to test in small groups or on your own. We have people read tests to you.  We take away electives so you can have additional help with your reading. 

I know it frustrates you.  I can see the stress on your face and the pain in your eyes.  I also know how desperately you want it to all make sense, and I admire the effort you put in.  You trust me and the other adults in this building to get you to where you need to end up.

I hope we don’t let you down.  You are, absolutely, the very best that we have.  Other kids may get better grades or have higher test scores, but even the adults in this building seldom hold themselves to the standards that you maintain.  To say that you are working “below grade level” may be fair when it comes to reading, but to say you are failing by any measure is ridiculous. You have a level of character that many adults never achieve and a work ethic and determination that could, someday, literally move mountains. (And, yes, I mean literally.  If I needed a mountain moved, I would trust someone like you to do it. You’d do it with a soup spoon if you had to, but it would get done). 

I hope you realize that what you have is more valuable than gold.  Your character and determination are your greatest assets, and they will get you farther than grades and test scores ever will.  I know that your peers aren’t always as good as they should be.  I know that the system expects things of you that don’t make much sense.  I know, as time goes by, that the constant refrain of “you’re not good enough” will wear on you and make you question that strength of character that you have shown me all year long. 

I don’t want any of that to change you. 

Which is why I had to write this letter.