This touching story is inspired by two Netflix movies – Freedom Writers and The Substitute.
Carlos was nervous over the interview to be a high school substitute teacher. In desperation for a job, he lied about having teaching experience. He was accepted right away, because the school had no one else. Carlos knew that the school was a dumping ground for drug addicts, drop-outs, angry children from broken homes and broken families. He was scared to face the class.
eastwind journals
July 4, 2025 – Archives tr625-626
By Bernie V. Lopez, eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com
Share the link to this article = https://eastwindjournals.com/2025/07/04/rebel-teacher-touches-broken-kids/
On the first day of class, he ignored a crumpled paper that hit him in the head while he was writing his name of the board. Everyone laughed. Everyone was speaking out of turn. Without a word, he smiled, and left the classroom, standing outside. The class became even more rowdy. After 5 minutes, he goes back in and said, “If you do not quiet down, I will have the whole class suspended. Try me, I can do it.” The silence was deafening. He was nervous because he was bluffing.
Carlos spent sleepless nights listing down creative ways to control the class. It was not just control. He had to learn to reach out and touch them. That was the challenge.
On the second day of class, he brought blank notebooks with titles “My Diary”, gave them out them, and told them to put their names on the front cover.
CARLOS – Now, you have a voice. You can write anything in your diary. Your pains, your joys, your loves, your hates, no censorhip. Only I can read your diaries. I will lock them in this cabinet. You can ask for your diary anytime.
It took two days to break the ice. Raffy, a noisy notorious leader, ask for his diary.
RAFFY – May I suggest, Sir, that we have the option to read our diary and share it with the class. (Everyone agreed. Raffy was the first to read out his diary.) I hate school. I don’t need an education. If I don’t go to school, my dad will throw me out of the house. He did that to my older brother, who now stays with homeless bums in an abandoned warehouse. I have no choice and I hate it.
CARLOS – But why do you hate it?
RAFFY – Why am I being forced? It’s just a job for teachers. Most of them hate teaching. I don’t learn anything.
CARLOS – I promise to change all that. Now that you have a voice, pour your heart out to your classmates. Don’t keep it inside, else you explode. That’s our first goal. I don’t care if we delay lessons in history or math for a while. Get grudges out of your system first. Speak out through your diaries.
JESSICA – (Reading out her diary.) I like Sir Carlos, our new teacher. The chance to talk relieves us a lot of our hatred inside us. So many negatives are bottled up inside me. I think Sir Carlos is different. He cares about us.
CARLOS – Raffy, what did it feel like speaking freely.
RAFFY – Great. I have less sleepless nights.
And so, the diaries changed the attitudes of the students. They stopped talking out of turn. They started looking up to Sir Carlos. The tone of the diaries also changed. There was less of hatred and more of learning to change for the better. They began listening to each other through the diaries. They shared their pains and suggestions how to deal with their pains. They also shared their joys, which fired up the entire class. The diaries changed their lives and healed their emotions.
At the end of the course, Carlos suggested to have the diaries published as a book, secretly without the school knowing, as they might start controlling and censoring it. There were screams of delight. For the first time, the students adored their rebel teacher who cared for them more than he cared for the school did.
With the help of a journalist friend, Carlos was able to promote the book in Social Media. It went viral, as many kids could see themselves in the diaries. The book, entitled “Our Diaries”, eventually became a best seller. Other schools started doing the same.
The class asked the school that they wanted Carlos as their teacher in the next school year. When the school objected, as it might invite jealousy among teachers, the two classes of Carlos with a total of 110 students threatened to drop out. The school gave in because they would lose a lot of unpaid tuition balance as income.
Amid the envy of other teachers who looked down on Carlos, a substitute teacher, he succeeded in breaking school protocol and getting to teach his same class for the next school year. His rep;utation spread to many students, who wanted him as a teacher. His new task was to do the impossible, to let the kids ‘see’ the world without leaving the classroom. His plan was ingenious.
He met Helga through the Internet, an old lady in her late 80s, a victim of the holocaust in World War 2. He was fascinated by her writings of the hell she went through. She was smuggled out of the Jewish group ready to be sent to the Auschwitz gas chambers. They put her in a coffin, presumed to be dead, for two days. At that time, she was four years old. When she came out, the first thing she asked for was water. The experience traumatized her that she withdrew completely from the world for years, until she was a teenager. No one could talk to her. She stared at the wall in silence the whole day.
Carlos visited her and simply touched her face. She reacted with a glimmer of a smile. Carlos was able to pry her open instantly after all the years. They had long talks, comparing each other’s pains. They became intimate friends overnight. Carlos suggested that she tell her experiences personally to Carlos’ students. She glowed with excitement when Carlos offered to buy her a round-trip ticket from his meager salary.
So, Helga visited the kids of Carlos. As Helga unraveled her stories, the class was awed into silence. When she was finished talking, the class started telling her about their pains, one by one.
JESSICA – It seems all our pains, our frustrations as forgotten kids, are all nothing compared to your pains. You are our hero.
HELGA – You are the heroes, not I. I can see that by just looking at all of you. I can feel your spirits. My suffering has made me so sensitive to your sufferings. And I can feel your despair and your hope, your wanting to get out of your despair. Believe me, it’s not that hard.
RAFFY – (standing up and offering a book to Helga). This is our gift to you, a book commemorating all our pains, a collection of the diaries of our souls in our darkened lives. We all wrote our pains into a book. It has become a bestseller, we don’t know why.
HELGA – Because the readers see their pains in your pains. Your book is a mirror for others to see themselves. Your book is like a tiny light inside the darkroom, which is suddenly no longer dark. One candle flame can conquer all the darkness around you. Your book brings hope, especially to others your age. You see, all of you together have that power to touch and inspire others. You just did not know it. You were blind to your true inner spirits. But now, you know.
A few girls started to sob uncontrollably.
RUBEN – Wow. Now we know how much power we have. Thank you so much, Helga. You are now a part of our lives.
CATHERINE – We are dividing the book income among ourselves.
HELGA – I suggest you save a portion and come visit me. All you need is a bus or train ticket.
RUBEN – I can just hitchhike.
JESSICA – May I join you?
CARLOS – We have all healed each other.
Helga did not know it at first. But she fell in love with the kids of Carlos. She was in tears.
HELGA – I would love to see guys again. I will feed you and give you a warm bed. I have learned so much from you, the spirit of young people ascending. I marvel at your bravery and your resolve in spite of your deep wounds. I need to see you again. We have fired each other’s spirit. (The class gives a loud scream.).
Helga became part of their lives, and their spirits yearning inside them. And they also became a part of Helga’s spirit, who saw herself in them when she was young. The permanent bond was forged by a dialogue during a visit.
In groups of 3, as Carlos suggested, they visited Helga, being careful not to overwhelm her. In 6 months, each one of them had visited her. They never told the school in fear of jealous teachers sabotaging their ‘class project’. It was a secret only the class and Carlos knew.
Time flew fast. The kids were now professionals – a teacher, a lawyer, a writer, even a Congressman. One day, they had a reunion. And Helga was their guest, the holocaust victim they saved without knowing it.
More Inspirational Articles – eastwindjournals.com.
FOR THOSE WHO NEED HEALING, spiritual or physical (depression, anxiety, loneliness, terminal cancer, covid, diabetes, etc.) – say an online healing prayer with one or both healers below. Terminal patients have been healed in cyberspace. All you need is to have faith and to ask the Lord –
1) Father Fernando Suarez – www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UP3LHBgtIc.
2) Sr. Raquel Reodica, RVM – www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAZcwNimBSg
Download free e-book ‘Healing Stories of Sr. Raquel’ at eastwindjournals.com/2021/08/13/healing-stories-of-sr-raquel-e-book-free-download/).
Author’s book. At age 26, the author (eastwind) drifted through Europe, hitchhiking 25,000 kilometers for three straight years. He wrote a book on his adventures, Wings and Wanderlust. He learned deep insights that radically changed his view of life, which he wants to share with readers looking for themselves or wanting to catch the wind. More about the book (get a copy) = https://eastwindjournals.com/2023/02/25/more-about-the-book-wings-and-wanderlust/
Author’s Credentials. Blogger – Columnist – Daily Tribune – ex-Columnist (Inquirer) – Healing Ministry – ex-Professor (Ateneo University) – Documentary Producer-Director (freelance, ex-ABS-CBN, ex-TVS Tokyo) – ex-Broadcaster (Radio Veritas) – Facebook “Bernie V. Lopez Eastwind” / Pages “Eastwind Journeys and Journals” and “Mary Queen of Peace”.
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