Quarters for Ricardo

Remember the worth of souls.  

   Ricardo is a first-grader I have been working with throughout the entire school year. He is way behind his peers in reading. When I first started working with him, he got on my nerves. He seemed to always be talking, moving, knocking something over, jumping down on the floor, or just being little-kid-annoying in general. He has a large scar on the side of his head, behind his ear. His teacher told me he had been in a car accident. I knew this, but he still frustrated me sometimes. I'm sure the injury contributed to problems in perception and processing.
   But I realized something a few weeks ago--he has made incredible and undeniable progress. he can now get through an easy reader book with minimal help. It has been slow-trudging through minute after agonizing minute, so I guess I didn't realize it was happening. It dawned on me today that he is my absolute favorite student. He is sweet, pleasant and helpful; he obeys and communicates with me intuitively. The second he sees me come in his class he tucks in his chair and rushes up to me, standing at attention with his arms tightly crossed and his eyes glued on me. I give him "Eagle Coins" (our school's reward tokens), quite liberally in fact, and he just keeps getting better and better.
    This morning we were reading a book called The Lost Tooth, where some forest creature loses his tooth and can't find it and then the other forest creatures find it for him and he eventually gets 5 cents from the tooth fairy. In the middle of the book I asked him if he knew what the tooth fairy was (a lot of the kids I work with don't know about stuff we would find obvious). He said no but proceeded to show me some of the spaces in his mouth were teeth have come out.
     I said, "Oh the Tooth Fairy will give you money for your teeth if you put them under your pillow. Do you still have your tooth?"
   "No," He replied. He went on to tell me about "why" he lost it, which started with his parents fighting and then something about his aunt and then ended with him not being able to find the tooth again. I didn't follow, but I figured those facts were connected in his mind somehow.
   I remembered I had a quarter in my pocket. Would a quarter be that exciting for a kid nowadays? I thought.  Oh well, it can't hurt. I sneakily pulled the quarter out and when the story ended. I said, "You know, I used to get quarters for my teeth when I was little. Just like....this one!" And I pulled the "quarter behind the ear" trick (I've been practicing). "You can have it," I said.
   "For me?" His eyes lit up. Such a simple thing but it worked! The trick actually worked perfectly. He giggled happily. We were sitting side by side and he reached his arm out, patted my back, and rested his head on my shoulder for a minute saying, "Thank you," sighing as if relieved, like he was thinking, Finally someone acknowledged my tooth!

   His tender little hug buoyed me up for the rest of the day and I marveled at how something so small to me could be so big to him. He's still behind his peers academically--a fact he's aware of--but he presses on, slowly reading book after book, and I want him to know and remember, that it will pay off. His hard work will always pay off.