I didn’t start this blog with the intention of getting all personal and what-not, but it feels like that might be where it needs to go. For me, and also, hopefully, to lend some credibility to the venture.
In getting personal, I’ll share that one of my past students has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Out of respect for his privacy, let’s call him Marvel and slightly alter some of his personal details.
Marvel was a Philo student (U.S. 13th grade) during my first year in Haiti. He was the biggest guy in school and a star of the basketball team, which is to say, about the size of your average U.S. high school soccer player, minus 6 inches or so. (Our kids were invariably malnourished. I actually didn’t notice how small they were until some kids from a wealthier private school came to play us in basketball. They all had about a foot on our kids in height, as well as several inches in width.)
Marvel was a kind kid (age 20), but I always had a hard time getting him to engage, and that’s saying a lot in a high school religion class. The others weren’t exactly on the edge of their seat, but I could at least get a chuckle when I started singing the lessons. Marvel inspired me to teach them the phrase, “above being pleased.” In retrospect, I don’t think his attitude was so much about pride, as maybe depression or simple exhaustion.
Anyhow, spring semester I was assigned to work closely with our Dean’s office, as I’d be serving as the Dean of Students the following year. I quickly learned that Marvel was at risk of failing his senior year. He was smart enough to pass the state exam (significantly more important in Haiti than earning a diploma), but if he didn’t pull it together for our final quarter, he wasn’t going to walk at graduation or be eligible for university scholarships or the other perks associated with being an alumnus of Ekol Louverture Cleary.
I was in charge of checking in Marvel and six other seniors who were at-risk of failing at a study hall every afternoon during play hour. The others showed, and some of their friends would come, too and spend the hour helping them with homework. Not so for Marvel.
Day after day, I’d take roll and Marvel wouldn’t be there. My stomach would first, sink, and second, clench into a ball of anger. Doesn’t he care about his education? He’s come so far. He’s a great leader in campus work projects and in sports (until his grades faltered). He is a “Louverturian.” He should be graduating. And so I’d go looking for him. He was always in one of two places, on the soccer field, or in his dorm (I’d send a male student after him). He never had any words, but would roll his eyes and walk in what felt like slow-motion to the study hall.
In the end, Marvel didn’t graduate. Along with three of his classmates. But that’s not really the end.
Two years later, I was gathering stories for the organization’s annual report. Marvel had gotten a job with an agency that had hired over a dozen of our graduates. I went to the location to snap some photos and get some quotes from the alumni. Truth be told, I’d forgotten that Marvel hadn’t graduated and caught him during a break - I’d seen him in the neighborhood since, and I thought of him only as my former student. I got his picture in his perfect uniform and asked my standard quote-yielding questions: “What do you remember most about your years at Louverture Cleary? What did you learn? How have those lessons helped you in your work?”
In response to that first question, he didn’t really answer at all. He said something like, “When I think about Louverture Cleary, I have many regrets. I am sad that I didn’t graduate, embarrassed.” At this point, I wanted to sink into the floor for having forgotten, but I was completely hooked. Every time he hadn’t showed, I thought it meant he didn’t care, that he wasn’t taking it seriously. And here, it was obvious, it mattered. He went on to thank me for trying so hard to help him, and owning all the responsibility for his failure to graduate. Now, I realize he could have been completely full of it and simply decided that I had enough power that I was a good connection to have, but my breath was taken away either way.
Marvel had passed the baccalaureate exam and was now gainfully employed. He’d also learned some of the most important lessons any young person (especially those coming from difficult circumstances) can learn - to accept responsibility for their actions, to understand that choices have consequences, and to say thank you to people who supported you. At least, in that moment he got it. Marvel, I hope you continue to remember those empowering truths.
While I was fairly bowled over in the moment, I haven’t fully appreciated the significance of this event til recently. I mean, parents and teachers are always saying, “you’ll thank me when you’re older,” (at least, they seem to do this a lot in the movies....) but how often does that actually happen??
That third year, I was so caught up in the tasks and being overwhelmed by the conditions in our own neighborhood and the country more broadly, that I wasn’t fully present to those little, miraculous moments. And that’s what he is - a miracle.
