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Повлиявший на меня человек

Ant­ho­ny was ne­it­her a le­ader nor a ro­le mo­del. In fact, his te­ac­hers and his pa­rents we­re cons­tan­tly chas­ti­sing him be­ca­use he was dis­rupti­ve, ate too much, and had a hard ti­me sta­ying fo­cused on a task. I met Ant­ho­ny when I was a co­un­se­lor at a lo­cal sum­mer camp. The co­un­se­lors had the usu­al du­ti­es of ke­eping kids from smo­king, drow­ning, and kil­ling each ot­her. We ma­de God’s eyes, fri­end­ship bra­celets, col­la­ges, and ot­her clichés. We ro­de hor­ses, sa­iled bo­ats, and hun­ted sni­pe.

Each co­un­se­lor al­so had to te­ach a three-we­ek co­ur­se that was sup­po­sed to be a litt­le mo­re "aca­demic” than the usu­al camp fa­re. I cre­ated a class cal­led "Things that Fly. ” I met with fif­te­en stu­dents for an ho­ur a day as we de­sig­ned, bu­ilt, and flew ki­tes, mo­del roc­kets, and bal­sa­wo­od airp­la­nes.

Ant­ho­ny sig­ned up for my class. Ant­ho­ny sto­od out from my ot­her stu­dents for ma­ny re­asons. He was lar­ger and lo­uder than the ot­her midd­le scho­ol kids. He was al­so the on­ly Af­ri­can Ame­rican in the class. The camp was lo­cated in a well-to-do and pre­domi­nate­ly whi­te ne­igh­bor­ho­od. In a qu­es­ti­onab­le ef­fort to pro­mote eco­nomic and ra­ci­al di­ver­si­ty, the camp or­ga­nizers de­velo­ped a stra­tegy of bu­sing in­ner-ci­ty kids out to the burbs. But des­pi­te the best ef­forts of the or­ga­nizers and co­un­se­lors, the in­ner-ci­ty kids and su­bur­ba­nites ten­ded to stick to the­ir own gro­ups du­ring most ac­ti­viti­es and me­als.

Ant­ho­ny was not a go­od stu­dent. He had be­en kept back a year at his scho­ol. He tal­ked out of turn and lost in­te­rest when ot­hers we­re tal­king. In my class, Ant­ho­ny got so­me go­od la­ughs when he sma­shed his ki­te and threw the pi­eces in­to the wind. His roc­ket ne­ver ma­de it to the la­unch pad be­ca­use he crump­led it in a fit of frust­ra­ti­on when he co­uldn’t get the fins to stay on.

In the fi­nal we­ek, when we we­re ma­king airp­la­nes, Ant­ho­ny surp­ri­sed me when he drew a sketch of a swe­ep-wing jet and told me he wan­ted to ma­ke a "re­al­ly co­ol pla­ne. ” Li­ke ma­ny of Ant­ho­ny’s te­ac­hers, and per­haps even his pa­rents, I had lar­ge­ly gi­ven up on him. Now he sud­denly sho­wed a spark of in­te­rest. I didn’t think the in­te­rest wo­uld last, but I hel­ped Ant­ho­ny get star­ted on a sca­le blu­ep­rint for his pla­ne. I wor­ked one-on-one with Ant­ho­ny and had him use his pro­ject to de­mons­tra­te to his class­ma­tes how to cut, glue and mo­unt the bal­sa­wo­od fra­mework. When the fra­mes we­re comp­le­te, we co­vered them with tis­sue pa­per. We mo­un­ted pro­pel­lers and rub­ber bands. Ant­ho­ny, with all his thumbs, cre­ated so­met­hing that lo­oked a bit li­ke his ori­ginal dra­wing des­pi­te so­me wrink­les and ext­ra glue.

Our first test flight saw Ant­ho­ny’s pla­ne no­se-di­ve stra­ight in­to the gro­und. His pla­ne had a lot of wing area in the back and too much we­ight in the front. I ex­pected Ant­ho­ny to grind his pla­ne in­to the earth with his bo­ot. He didn’t. He wan­ted to ma­ke his cre­ation work. The class re­tur­ned to the class­ro­om to ma­ke ad­just­ments, and Ant­ho­ny ad­ded so­me big flaps to the wings. Our se­cond test flight surp­ri­sed the who­le class. As ma­ny of the pla­nes stal­led, twis­ted, and no­se-di­ved, Ant­ho­ny’s flew stra­ight out from the hill­si­de and lan­ded gent­ly a go­od 50 yards away.

I’m not wri­ting abo­ut Ant­ho­ny to sug­gest that I was a go­od te­ac­her. I wasn’t. In fact, I had qu­ick­ly dis­missed Ant­ho­ny li­ke ma­ny of his te­ac­hers be­fore me. At best, I had vi­ewed him as a dist­rac­ti­on in my class, and I felt my job was to ke­ep him from sa­bota­ging the ex­pe­ri­en­ce for the ot­her stu­dents. Ant­ho­ny’s ul­ti­mate suc­cess was a re­sult of his own mo­tiva­ti­on, not my ins­truc­ti­on.

Ant­ho­ny’s suc­cess wasn’t just his pla­ne. He had suc­ce­eded in ma­king me awa­re of my own fa­ilu­res. He­re was a stu­dent who was ne­ver ta­ken se­ri­ous­ly and had de­velo­ped a bunch of be­havi­oral is­su­es as a re­sult. I ne­ver stop­ped to lo­ok for his po­ten­ti­al, dis­co­ver his in­te­rests, or get to know the kid be­ne­ath the fa­cade. I had gross­ly un­de­res­ti­mated Ant­ho­ny, and I am gra­teful that he was ab­le to di­sil­lu­si­on me.

I li­ke to think that I’m an open-min­ded, li­beral, and non-judg­men­tal per­son. Ant­ho­ny ta­ught me that I’m not the­re yet.

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