学进去

“A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high. ” I’m sure T. J,   Ware was made to feel this way almost every day in school.

By high school, T, J. was the most celebrated troublemaker in his town. Teachers literally cringed when they saw his name posted on their classroom lists.

I met T. J. for the first time when all the students at school were attending ACE training.   At first, he showed no interest in the discussion.   But slowly, the interactive games drew him in.   T. J.   had some brilliant thoughts on those situations, which were welcomed by his group.   By the end of the activity, the other students on the team were impressed with his concern and ideas and elected T. J.   co-chairman of the team.

When T. J. showed up at school on Monday morning, a group of teachers were expressing their disagreements to the school principal about his being elected co-chairman. The principal reminded them that the purpose of the program was to uncover any positive feeling and strengthen its practice until true change can take place. The teachers left the meeting, firmly convinced that failure was unavoidable.

Two weeks later, T. J.   and his friends led a group of 70 students to collect food   They collected a school record: 2,854 cans of food in just two hours.   The local newspaper covered the event with a full-page article the next day. That newspaper story was posted on the main bulletin board at school, where everyone could see it.   

T. J. ,s picture was up there for doing something great.

T. J. started showing up at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time.   The event he started now yields 9,000 cans of food in one day, taking care of 70 percent of the need for food for one year.

T, J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs mending.   But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest.   T. J.   got a job.   He became productive.   He is flying quite nicely these days.