This past weekend I visited the house of a student named Leonardo, who lives on a farm about 10 minutes or so away by bus. On a small side note, his family gave me about 4 kilos of grapes, which I have been eating quite greedily (and suffering the consequences in my belly) for four days now). Leonardo had spent his whole childhood attending Cristo Rey, the elite Jesuit school that is the best in Tacna, on scholarship. At the end of last year, he was asked to leave because of his academics. Over the first few months of this year, I have found him to me an incredible worker and have a spirit to want to suceed, but also to be incredibly nervous and struggle with making connections from practice exercises to other work. Leonardo clearly has some learning and even emotional issues, but the extent to which he suffers from these truly only poured out at the house visit.
As we were sitting in his chacra (farm) and talking with him and his parents, I was trying to broach the subject of how he has been adjusting to Miguel Pro, and so I asked Leonardo about what activities he was involved in at Cristo Rey. This opened the way to Leonardo pouring out about he feels like he has never followed through with what he has started in his life (whether it be an extra taller on making ceramics, helping with teaching catechesis classes, or graduating from Miguel Pro). Additionally, he expressed the disappointment and guilt that his mother had been pressuring on him since the end of last year. He described in detail his last encounters with the teachers who supported him and his few friends, mentioning over and over how he felt like he lied to them by saying he would see them next year and not admitting that he would not be returning.
The tutor who I work with, Lizbeth (who happens to be eight months pregnant, work in three different educational institutions - she works until 5:00 on Sundays!) handled the situation very well, both talking with the parents about how they need to be supportive and help him follow through with his dreams, while also making sure Leonardo felt that he needed to be responsible too for his grades and the path his life has gone down.
For me, this student particularly hits a nerve because he is such a lonely, but good person (and works so hard), but clearly has trouble communicating with others, processing information, managing tension and stress, and just generally handling daily interaction and life. I want the best for him and I want him to become a Jesuit dentist (his two dreams that he adamently told his mother he could accomplish together), but there are so many obstacles and so much that he struggles with.
Anyway, I have some ideas and have undertaken a mission to at the very least help boost Leonardo´s self image. With my compañero Nate at Cristo Rey, we are getting his ex-teachers and his friends from there to write little notes letting him know they still think about him, are not disappointed in him, and that they all want the best for him. In English class, I have noticed that he can apply a rubric or a chart to exercises relatively well, so I make him his own for each new grammatical theme we discuss. And lastly, I am going to try to help integrate him socially into the 4th years as best as I can by bringing him into my recess conversations with the students or including him on different committees or in different activities.
I hope too that maybe, at the least, bringing a little more warmth and interest to his life will lift his spirits a bit. We will see.
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