Part 5: Surprise endings on the final day

Others didn't write in their journals as much as he had hoped.

Still, principal Michael Rosenberg of Grover Washington, which is in Olney, plans to take the program to other grades. And Paul Vallas, chief executive of the Philadelphia School District, is contemplating training for other district teachers.

Today, 29 of Galbraith's 31 students, more than ever before, agree to read aloud - about their future.

Naibria Reid, who led her class in an antiviolence march, says she's signed up for a peace project at a charter school she will attend next year.

"It's not ending for me," she says of her peace efforts.

Reading from her diary, she tells the class: "Ten years from now, either you'll be working for me or buying from me."

Long Nguyen, 15, no longer wants to join the military to wrest his native Vietnam from the communists. He wants to be a physicist and create a device to prevent global warming.

"I want to preach like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I will show people that violence is not right and should not be done."

The bubbly Cynthia Vega, who had missed 48 days this school year, tells the class, "I want to emerge from a caterpillar to a butterfly and spread my wings to fly."

Trey McCloud, 14, the broad-shouldered teen who didn't want to pick up a pencil last fall, asks for more time to write when Galbraith calls on him. Bullied earlier in the year, he tells his classmates he wants to start an association for abused children. He plays bass guitar and admires saxophonist John Coltrane.

"I'll keep my friends near me because they kept me going."

David Leal, 15, dubbed "Mr. Metaphor" by Galbraith, discovered his talent: writing. He'd started the year talking of the tension between his two worlds: his peaceful, religious family and the tough streets.

"I want to be a person who lives to see 40, a person who gets to see his kids in the right place... .

"I want to be remembered not by my writing... but by the boy who took his life for the good and for the better and changed it, who saw half of his friends go to jail and hopped up and being baddies and decided what the hell - that's not me."

At last, Jeremiah, who had been picked on repeatedly over his school years, sets his journal on his knees and begins to read. His classmates fall silent.

"As I got older, my future started to become clearer. I wanted to be a doctor and a preacher.

"I want my family and friends to look up to me, not look down on me for what I did wrong... . I don't need violence. My writing is my sword and I don't need anything else.

"I want to be able to do things without being scared, and when it's my time to go, I want to go saying I did it - not, damn, I should have never did this. When I've stuck my sword in the golden sands of time, I know I've done good, because I want to go to heaven."

The class applauds. "Nicely put together, Jeremiah," Galbraith says.

"This class has grown so much," Galbraith tells his students, sitting, as usual, in the back of the room. "It's about what you guys did and how you accepted each other."