MANILA, Philippines — “Grades will never define him. He may have low grades, but he has a great character, an attitude that we will never exchange for anything. He can’t explain himself clearly with words, but his actions speak for him.”
PC Pau wrote this on Facebook to describe her youngest brother who graduated from grade school with a general average of 76.
The Facebook post has gone viral, with more than 150,000 reactions and 41,000 shares as of this writing.
According to Pau, her family thought that her adopted brother Wayne would have to repeat sixth grade. But one day after school, he came running home, excitedly shouting: “Mama, ga-graduate daw ako.”
[Mom, I will graduate.]
Wayne, whose real mother died of lupus and whose father whose not around, had gone from first to fifth grade with his general average ranging from 76 to 78.
“We do not know what his condition actually is,” Pau said. “But he has a hard time reading, writing and speaking. He is 12 years old.”
Compared to other children, Wayne is small, she said.
He couldn’t construct sentences well and likes playing games that typically only children 4 or 5 years old will play.
“He started learning how to read syllables, and memorizing the alphabet in grade six,” Pau said.
Though Wayne did not get good grades, Pau said they never scolded him nor made him feel like he did not know anything.
Her brother, she explained, had a lot of positive attributes that made up for his average grades.
“We never made him feel bad about himself because we know that behind those almost failing grades, behind those unexplained explanations, were dreams and a great character,” she said.
/atm