Part 5: Surprise endings on the final day

Last in the series

Friday, June 2 - Thirteen-year-old Jeremiah Robinson has a surprise for his teacher, "a big surprise."

"Not heart-attack or stroke surprise," the short, solemn teen insists.

"I will read today," Jeremiah announces.

Michael Galbraith, 40, opens his arms in a welcoming fashion and says, "I'll be here."

All semester, as his eighth-grade classmates at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School read from their diaries, Jeremiah had held back.

His offer to speak up today, the last day of journal readings, is another small victory for Galbraith, who set out to turn his students on to writing and - along the way - help them understand one another better.

He saw their literacy test scores improve. Absenteeism dropped - to 13 days on average this year, compared with 15 days for the same students the year before.

Some, such as lanky Jean Paul Arroliga, who had struggled to write, were dashing off pieces in rhyme:

"Maybe my rap game will blow up at night.

Boy, would that be a nice sight.

But for now, I'm just going to write.

Doing what I gotta do.

So I can be what I want to be.

Hoping this world has a future for me."

Reggie Whitman, 14, whose anger had worried Galbraith, says that writing is his new way of coping: "Now, I just write it down and relive everything that happened in a positive way," he says. "I don't feel as if I need to use violence to make myself feel better anymore."

Heather Rodriguez, 14, reveals she is tackling an issue she found the nerve to write about: her weight. She has dropped eight pounds.,

"I saw students feel safe to take risks in this class, more than I've ever seen before," Galbraith says. "They took risks about things that sometimes there's a taboo about; for instance, the taboo about putting your business out there."

There were disappointments.

Galbraith was perplexed that despite his emphasis on openness and trust, some students - particularly those in a second diary class he taught - continued to get into fights.