Everyone has some strengths
Alex roamed about and gawked at everybody. Every school he attended had his name on top of the list of troublemakers. Running into trouble became a regular feature of Alex, who would always do something to the displeasure of his teachers and students.
It was because of this attitude that his classmates nicknamed him ‘the king of trouble.’
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In fact, Alex got on the nerves of everybody he came into contact with and the painful thing was that he saw nothing wrong with his actions even when they were pointed out to him.
One day, a new student, who was physically challenged for which reason he walked with crutches, was enrolled in their school. It was break time when Alex saw this new student.
Immediately, he burst out with laughter and made some derogatory remarks about this physically challenged student. It was the most embarrassing scene as all the students turned to look at the boy.
The headmaster and the school prefect accidentally witnessed the whole incident and did not take it kindly. The school prefect, in particular, asked Alex to apologise to the student but he insisted that he had done no wrong.
Everybody expected the headmaster to rebuke or punish Alex for his behaviour but to their surprise, he did neither of these. He just turned and left the scene. Later during afternoon assembly, he announced that there was going to be a school trip.
As shocking as the news seemed to the entire school, the teachers and all the students, including Alex, were happy to embark on that trip.
Finally, the day came for them to leave for the trip and when they arrived at the venue, all was set for fun -- there were tennis balls, skipping ropes, food, drinks, among others, and indeed they all had fun after many hours of engaging in various activities.
After all the funfair, the headmaster, who apparently had something up his sleeves, asked all the teachers and students to sit down around him for a pep talk. Then he started telling them the story of General Ryan, a great soldier of his time.
Gen Ryan was among a troop of soldiers sent to restore peace in a war torn country, he began. In the heat of the war, one of his colleagues lost both legs due to a landmine he accidentally stepped on.
That wounded soldier, William, was abandoned by his colleagues but not Gen Ryan who disregarded all the danger that surrounded having a wounded soldier and led him safely to the simple tents that housed the troops. There, he took care of him and showed the wounded soldier so much love but the other soldiers thought that because of his lost limbs, he was of no use.
Some looked at him with disdain and majority also felt that William would be a hindrance in the mission they were embarking on.
This made William lose confidence in himself and he felt he was useless. But because of the love and care he received from Gen Ryan, William recovered quickly from his loss of confidence and decided to stay with the troops instead of going home where he would be more depressed. Some did not take kindly to this decision of his because they felt he was an obstruction to their mission ahead.
One evening, while the soldiers were asleep, troops from the enemy group they were fighting secretly invaded their tents and planted dangerous explosives that would have killed everyone that day.
But William was not asleep then, he was feeling pains in his wounded leg so he went to the other tent where they kept their first aid for some pain killers.
It was while there that he saw all that the enemy troops were doing. After they had left, he quickly crawled back to the tents to wake the soldiers up to flee for their lives. Within minutes after leaving where they resided, the whole place exploded into flames.
All the soldiers looked at William and thanked him. He saved their lives even when they thought he was useless. On their return home, he was given the highest state medal. That experience made his colleagues stop ridiculing him.
“So what moral lesson have you learnt?” the headmaster asked. Most of the children who raised their hands to answer the question responded that, “we learnt that it is not good to mock anybody because of their disability.”
Others also said the fact that somebody is disabled did not mean they were useless. As Alex sat listening to the story the headmaster told them and the lessons learnt, he knew he was wrong for mocking the new student the previous day because of his disability and decided to go and apologise to him.
By Miriam Appiah,
Edlys Montessori School,
Haatso-Accra.