Close to the end of the trimester, Tasha (all names changed) was failing reading. She had a week and a half to get 10 points in Reading. She didn’t think she could do it. She asked me if I thought she could. I said “I have every faith in you that you can do it, if you think you can do it.”

So she said, “Will you help me?”

“If you’re willing to put in the effort, then I’ll put in the effort as well.”

For a week and a half I worked with her in Reading, and she got an A+. She met her point goal and she earned an award at mass for her accomplishments in Reading. After mass she came up to me and said, “You have to have this.”

“I don’t want to take your award. You earned it.”

“No, if you didn’t believe in me, I wouldn’t have believed in myself. I want you to have the Award of Accomplishment.”

That alone makes it all worth it. I’m doing work that needs to be done. It’s not money; it’s not material goods. It’s making a difference. It’s playing a part that needs to be played to make things happen. This incident was the one that made the choice to return to Comer for a second year pretty easy.

Alberto Guerrero (03-05)
San Miguel Middle School, Gary Comer Campus, Chicago, IL