Grade 9, Africa House College
In the school Africa House College, there was a boy named Thabo who lived with his grandmother. Thabo was doing Grade 10 and it was his biggest wish to make his parents happy.
Thabo studied three times a day, but when it came to exams he always found it hard to make it. His classmates believed he was dumb, but Thabo had confidence in himself.
His best friend ended up separating himself from Thabo as he was ashamed to be seen with a failing person. Most of Thabo’s classmates called him by names, and he was hurt emotionally. Thabo’s parents were no longer interested in seeing his reports as they knew that Thabo always failed.
Thabo believed you have to endure struggles to succeed in life, as he continued to study hard, wishing that one day he could pass and make his parents happy.
Although it wasn’t too easy, he didn’t give up. Thabo was not ashamed to approach teachers to ask where he did not understand during the lesson. Thabo recused himself from playing, and even made a timetable of studying three times a day. The whole class saw Thabo as a different person from others, and they believed he was a loser. Later he increased his timetable from studying three times a day to five times a day.
He would always cry alone on the bed, feeling hurt about being treated differently because he wasn’t clever. He couldn’t imagine himself going to school, where some were gossiping him, calling him bad things.
Thabo studied with the help of the internet, and he also approached some former students to do extra lessons. Thabo tried his best to understand; as time went on slowly, Thabo was able to answer difficult questions and score more than 50%.
By the end of the term, Thabo wrote an exam for mathematics; he scored 96%. Everyone in his classroom was confused and jealous of how Thabo passed. Thabo became the highest in his class and won three awards on prize-giving day.
His grandmother was happy, and she also didn’t believe it. Thabo was happy too, and he opened an organisation that teaches young students not to undermine other kids, and how hard work pays.
Thabo taught them that they should work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen because hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, and also hard work in silence and let your success be your noise.