My least gifted student

My Least Gifted Student
by
Austin Mitchell

When I first taught school as an assistant teacher I met a youth, I will call him my least gifted student. It was in my first year at the school. There were about twenty students in the class. There were twelve girls and eight boys. In those days we used to set tests at the end of the term and the twelve girls would be placed before the eight boys. It was my first experience with such a situation. None of the boys were bright. As I have said there was this boy whom I probably saw about fifteen to twenty times during the school year. He could do absolutely nothing. Incidentally I was teaching Grade Seven. I wondered how could a boy like that reach Grade Seven and he could neither read nor write. The situation was bad with some of the other boys too because there was a set of about four of them who told me that they had to stop from school sometimes to look after their animals. But these boys tried their best and I sometimes helped them with remedial reading.
 I'm not sure if he went to Grade Eight or what. Anyway several years after I left the school I heard my brothers talking about a shopkeeper. Lo and behold it was my absentee student. He was running a wholesale, had his own vehicle and a couple more shops. I was shocked but I understand that he had gotten involved in the politics and was smart enough to get something out of it. But he certainly must have learned to read and write along the way. The End.
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