“Then one day in biology class the students were dissecting frogs and the teacher, Mrs. Joan Thomas, watched him and said, “Kermit, you’re doing an excellent job.” He was terribly embarrassed and he was sure that she was making fun of him. All the other kids began to laugh too, sure that she was mocking him. After all, Kermit was the boy who had never been praised before and who was often the butt of a teacher’s frustrated criticism. “No,” she corrected them, “I mean it. Kermit is doing an excellent job.” That was the first time that anyone had ever told him that he was good at anything in his entire life. With that he began to feel confident in biology and he began to study and get good marks. Soon he had good marks in biology and poor marks in everything else. Then Mrs. Thomas became his homeroom teacher and she looked at his report card and told him that he ought to try to do better in other courses too. “You know, Kermit,” she said, “you’re intelligent and you could get good marks if you wanted to.” He was stunned by that, by the idea that she thought he was intelligent. In his last year at Calvin Coolidge he made the honor roll. He was very proud of that.”
―
David Halberstam,
The Breaks of the Game
