Wilber the WILD

Wilber- age 8

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I walk in the gate, and Wilber is hunched over on the ground, folding a used piece of notebook paper.  He sticks his tongue out, perfecting the creases.  Then he stands, his paper airplane in hand, and with a look of pure delight, throws it to the wind, watching it loop and twirl.  Wilber notices me, and smiles.  "Look at my airplane!" he says.

We call all the first graders to the classroom, and Wilber lingers on the playground, defying my request to come inside.  He climbs up the slide and goes down again.  "Wilber!" I call, "C'mon!"  "No!!" he yells back, and climbs back up the slide.  I go back inside and get the other kids started on their homework, trying to muster the energy and find the time it will take to get Wilber inside and working.

Suddenly, Wilber's mom appears in the door, Wilber scampering in ahead of her.  A tall Quechua woman,  Doña Justina towers over Wilber, brandishing a freshly cut stick.  Yelling in Quechua, her eyes narrowed and mean, she starts savagely beating him with the stick as though he were a dog who made a mess.  No one need understand Quechua to understand she's telling her son he is no good.  Wilber yelps and starts crying, hard.  One of the other teachers standing nearby puts herself between the angry mom and Wilber, taking the stick from her and asking her to leave.

Wilber's heaving sobs slow, and he pulls out a pencil and starts furiously writing in his homework notebook,  his "m"s growing into 4 or 5 bumps, his "u"s sliding off the page.  I try to soften my tone, gently approaching him.   "Wilber, some of your letters are trying to escape the page!  Let's try to bring them back with their other friends.  I have an eraser.  Do you want to erase or should I?"  He gives me a sullen glare and starts to scribble on the desk instead of answering me.  I take his pencil away, and he screams "Give it back!" pure rage shooting out of his eyes.  I keep my tone level, telling him I'll talk to him about it when he calms down.  "¡Calláte!" he bellows, "Shut up!!" slapping me hard on the head.

I move towards him to talk about what he just did, and Wilber escapes through a hole in the door.  I try to regain control of the rest of my group, who in the meantime have followed Wilber's example and are hitting each other.  Half an hour later, Wilber wanders back inside, still sullen.  I tell him I'm not mad at him, but that he hurt me.  I ask him to apologize for smacking me and he glares again, running away to a corner.  When he sees me start to serve the other kids the snack, he comes over to me, head hanging.  "Forgive me, Profe," he says.

                         a gift from Wilber

The rest of the day, Wilber is repentant and compliant.  He finishes his homework, even offering to erase his own mistakes.  As Wilber and I walk out the door, he slips his little hand in mine and shoots me a beautiful smile.  I silently pray that the Lord would grow that smile in his heart, and that it would take root like a weed, choking out all the hurt, rage and frustration he holds inside.