This week's story appears in Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. At first glance, it may not appear to be a giving story, but the teacher certainly gave something wonderful to Nicole. Nicole, in turn, gave it to her mother. The mother gave something very special to her mother! The story is used here with permission of James Elwood Conner, Copyright 2000 by James Elwood Conner.
Setting: A school in rural Arkansas
The students consisted mainly of poor, underachieving African-American children. Thanks to a Rockefeller Foundation grant, "Chapter I" first-graders would participate in a different kind of reading program. The brainchild of Dr. Marie Carbo, it is based on the notion that the important thing about learning to read has far less to do with how smart students are than with how they are smart.
After children had successfully completed a book, they were rewarded by being allowed to take books, tapes and a Walkman home over the weekend. The thinking was that this would provide additional reinforcement of learning.
When Friday rolled around, Nicole left the school, clutching a book, tapes and Walkman. The understanding was that children would return on Monday with the items they took home.
On Monday, Nicole failed to bring the books and tapes back to school. Every day, she either said she forgot or didn't offer any excuse at all. The teacher knew this wasn't at all like Nicole. Something was wrong.
Three weeks passed. Still no books or tapes were returned!
Then one day, Nicole's astonishingly young mother--dressed in a fast-food worker's uniform--came to the school. She told the school secretary she wanted to talk outside with the remedial reading teacher!
With understandable apprehension, the teacher walked out of the school to meet with Nicole's mother. The mother, clutching the books, tapes and Walkman, told the teacher that she wanted to explain why Nicole hadn't brought the books and tapes back as promised. Nicole was not to be blamed; she was.
It soon became clear to the teacher that Nicole's mother wasn't having an easy time telling her exactly why it had taken so long to bring the reading materials back. In what seemed a long and uncomfortable silence, the teacher waited. The mother's first words came haltingly. Then suddenly, the mother seemed find her comfort zone and started to tell a remarkable story.
"When Nicole came home and told me she was learning to read, I didn't believe her. Nobody in my family can read. My daddy and momma can't read. My other brothers and sisters can't read. And I couldn't read!
"I was in sixth grade when I had Nicole. I had to quit school. I just gave up any hope of ever learning how to read.
"When Nicole brought this book home and read to me, I asked her, 'How'd you learn to do that?' Nicole said, 'It's easy, Momma. I just listened to the tape and followed along in the book with whatever the teacher reads. If I need to, I just keep listening and reading along with the teacher until I can read all by myself. You can do it, too, Momma!'
"I didn't believe Nicole. But I just knew I had to try...The reason Nicole didn't bring her reading stuff back to school was because I just couldn't let go of it! I had to find out if I could learn to read like my little girl."
There was a short pause, then, "Can I read to you?"
There on the steps of her child's school, this very young mother, a child who herself had a child, began to read the book to the teacher. All the while, tears streamed down the mother's cheeks. In this intense moment, the teacher also began to cry. Anyone seeing the two would surely have thought something tragic had happened. How could anyone know that their tears were actually being shed over the birth of unrealized, God-given potential?
Nicole's mother went on to explain that with the help of this book--which she now clutched lovingly to her chest--she had learned to read! There was no need for exclaiming hallelujahs. They abounded in the mother's every word. They were expressed through the transformed countenance of a newly acquired confidence.
For Nicole's teacher, this seemed a holy moment; no words could possibly express it. Awed, she sat enveloped by an unforeseen, unintended effect of the reading program. It served as a confirmation of what she had been taught about teaching, that so many wondrous things seemed to come about by accident. She couldn't help but reflect that, ironically, all the benefits that had been accrued to this young mother were not part of her lesson plan. Was what had happened part of a cosmic joke, with the punchline being unintended consequences? Was what had happened to this mother really some kind of cosmic gift that she would never be able to understand, explain or control?
Shattering her reflections, the mother, who seemed to be sitting a bit taller, announced that she--who had come to accept, beyond all doubt, that she was just too dumb to learn to read--had actually done the impossible:
She had read to her mother!
From the Bible!
On Christmas morning!