By fr. JLucas. Nov 28, 2025 @HolyTrinityHighSchool

The past week certainly I was presented with a demanding test of character, one that highlighted the true, quiet courage inherent in the teaching profession. On Monday the 24/11/2025 I encountered a Grade 7 student whom I’ve known for the past three years, as he is now a repeater. I call students like him “quietly rude” because they appear well-behaved until they reveal their awful attitude.

He has been absent from my class since the school term began, though he attends school daily. On Monday, he was disrupting another one of my classes where he didn’t belong. I had to forcibly remove him and escort him to the office, holding him by his shirt and pulling him despite his resistance.

Despite his disruptive behavior, I asked him why he wasn’t attending my class. He had the confidence to lie, claiming he didn’t understand me and couldn’t read my handwriting. To his lack of knowledge, I use slides for all my classes.

I was furious at his blatant lie; I wanted to physically remove him from the school grounds. However, I also felt a sense of sadness for his parents. He claimed that if he reported my actions, his parents would come to the school and beat me.

Sometimes, courage is not a grand, sweeping gesture, but the steady, internal resolve to remain composed when everything around you threatens to unravel. The incident with the student—the rudeness, the disruption, the open defiance—was precisely one of those moments.

While the student’s claimed reason for his absence and rudeness—that he “cannot understand me”—does not excuse his behavior, it suggests the indiscipline may be rooted in feelings of disconnect or inadequacy. This introduces a layer of complexity to the situation.

Reflecting on this incident almost three days later, I am reminded that “Sometimes courage isn’t climbing Mount Everest or changing the world. Sometimes your mountain to climb is made up of weekdays and months, made up of pushing yourself forward even when you want to nestle into the past. Sometimes changing the world means changing your world as gradually as you need to. As gently as you heal, because sometimes courage isn’t made up of war and bloodshed; sometimes courage isn’t made of combat. Sometimes courage is a quiet fight, a dim softness within you, that flickers even on your darkest days and reminds you that you are strong, that you are growing, that there is hope.” ~Bianca Sparacino