What happened?

Good afternoon guys. How are you doing today? I trust that you're having a great day.

Why are you doing this, Richard?

What else do you want us to do?

These are the questions asked questions asked by Richard's parents after several attempts to help his academics have proved abortive.

Richard is a JSS2 student of one the private secondary schools in Nigeria. Richard is one of the below average students in his class. So many efforts have been made by his parents to see that he performs well in school. Unfortunately, all these have proved abortive.

Every of his class teacher has been forced to neglect him after several attempts to help him with his academics. His parents have hired lesson teachers to teach at home after school so that through this he would be helped. Maybe his problem was that he wasn't fine with the general teachings in the class. Or that he needed close monitoring and tutoring. All these were to no avail because there was no improvement in his academic works at all.

He was pushed from class to class till he got into secondary school. So many efforts have been put for him to become better but all to no avail.

Everytime Richard moved to a new class, his parents would have a meeting with the class teacher to explain their ordeal to the teachers in hope that the teacher would give them solutions to their problems. Most teachers had advised them to put in a private lesson so that he would be kept busy after school hours. This method had failed countless times but the parents still continued to fix him in a private lesson in hope that one day, he'll change.

But then, a change began to happen in the second term of his stay in JSS 2. He was beginning to improve in his academic works. His classmates at first thought it was coincidence when he was among the top scorers in one of the exercises they were given as homework. His parents also were surprised but as time went, they were getting used to seeing good scores in his notebooks. They were becoming excited. They were happy that their son was showing signs of improvement. But one person wasn't that surprised. That was his class teacher. The class teacher was the lesson teacher, but asides teaching him the normal school work. What else did the teacher do that has caused a change in the academic life of Richard? What did this teacher do that others didn't do? What did he know that other teachers didn't know?

The week that marked a change in the academic life of Richard was just like every other week. The teacher came to Richard's house to take him the private tutorial as agredd by the parents. The tutorial continued with the usual struggles of having to teach and not seeing the good results that should be seen, instead, there was failure. The teacher was already getting tired of Richard but because of the money he earns just to teach him, he couldn't stop. At least the pay was still good.

He was still seated when he began to think of ways to help Richard. He knew that tutorial classes won't help as it has failed countless times. He decided to put the tutorial class on hold to have a chat with Richard. He sat with Richard and engaged in a long talk with him. In this talk, they talked about so many things.

During the session of talking, Richard opened up to his teacher that he had always wanted to improve but he always feel discouraged every time he failed. Another time he was discouraged again was when his grade 6 teacher out of discouragement said that he cannot be great academically because of all the efforts that have been put in making him better. That statement had stayed with him till he had that chat with his teacher.

His teacher had to talk the wrong mindset away till he believed in himself enough. And from that day, he began to think differently. He now viewed himself as someone that can be the best.

This is the end of today's story. I'm sure you've learnt a thing or two from this story. What have you learnt? Share with me in the comments section.

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