"A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high." I'm sure that T. J. Ware was made to feel this way almost every day in school. By high school, T. J. was the most celebrated troublemaker in his town. He was always impolite, didn't answer questions and got into lots of fights.
I met T. J. for the first time at a weekend leadership program. At the start of the program, T. J. was literally standing outside the circle of students with that "go ahead, impress me" look on his face. The ice really melted (融化) when the groups started building a list of positive and negative things that occurred at school that year. T. J. had brilliant thoughts on those situations. The other students in T. J.'s group welcomed his comments. All of a sudden T. J. felt like a part of the group, and before long he was being treated like a leader.
The next following days, T. J. was very active in all the sessions. Later he joined the Homeless Project team. He knew something about poverty, hunger and hopelessness. The other students on the team were impressed with his passionate concern and ideas. By the end of the program, the students elected T. J. co-chairman of the team. Many people couldn't believe that the principal (校长) would allow this crucial beginning to a three-year action plan to stay in the incapable hands of T. J. Ware.
Two weeks later, T. J. and his friends led a group of 70 students in a drive to collect food. They collected a school record: 2, 854 cans of food in just two hours. As the local newspaper covered the event with a full-page article, T. J. started showing up at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time. Later, he led a second project, yielding 9,000 cans of food in one day and taking care of 70 percent of the needed food for the homeless shelter for one year.
T. J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs mending. But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest. T. J. got a job. He became productive. He is flying quite nicely these days.
