The Trojan War - teacher of problem student discusses his paper on the Trojan War - Brief Article

It's not always the winners who are remembered best

On the first day of school, Leonardo strode into my seventh-grade classroom, opened his arms, and announced, with a smile, "Hold up, everybody. Your worst nightmare is here." I smiled back at this skinny, angelic-looking kid--he didn't scare me.

As the fall wore on, I saw little of Leonardo's notorious temper. Rather, I knew him best as a reader. He was fascinated by the "Greek god squad" he had encountered in The Children's Homer. He so admired Zeus' powers that he took Zeus as his tag, scratching it into a desktop and spray-painting it on the gym floor.

In November, Leonardo chose the Trojan horse as his research paper topic and showed me a thick, dusty copy of Virgil's Aeneid. "That looks like a challenging read," I commented.

"Yeah," he conceded, "but I gotta get to the source. I don't believe anyone who didn't see that horse can get it right."

Leonardo talked often about his reading. "Did you know that the Trojans lost that war?" he challenged me. "But they got the war named after them anyway. Isn't the winner supposed to be the one everybody remembers?"

After Christmas vacation, Leonardo's classmates brought typed, elaborately decorated reports to school. Leonardo didn't come at all. When he finally returned a few days later, he dropped a sheaf of handwritten papers on my desk: his report.

"Problems," he said cryptically.

I wrestled with his grade. The report was filled with errors, and sections of it sounded suspiciously bookish. Still, he deserved extra credit for tacking Virgil. When I handed back the report, he said dismissively, "Keep it."

"I'd love to," I replied. "You worked hard on this."

"Nah, I just don't want that trash," he retorted.

Leonardo's attitude worsened. In school he dozed, head on his desk. His guidance counselor spoke of family problems. Finally, he was transferred to a school for troubled adolescents.

Leonardo died last summer, at age 16, fighting a man who had dissed him. When I heard of his death, I found and reread his report, which concludes, "The Trojans were tough fighters. They should've won, but they got fast faked-out by a big horse. In those days, people didn't fight too good."

It is a rare privilege to teach, to know children well for a year of their lives. I'm the only person who knew my self-described "nightmare" as the kid who rooted for the Trojans. Leonardo died too young to be a winner in life. But, like the Trojans whom we remember despite their losses, I remember Leonardo. I remember the brief spark he ignited in himself, the spark that was tragically extinguished. And that memory inspires me to cherish each kid, even the "nightmares," a little more.

Marcia Worth-Baker teaches fourth, fifth, and sixth grade Language Arts in North Caldwell, New Jersey.

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