In his second year teaching sixth-grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio, James Talarico, then 23, remembers getting a new student who came with a warning: Justin had been kicked out of his elementary school for bringing a knife to school and threatening, twice, to stab his fifth-grade teacher.
As he tells it today, Talarico welcomed the new student by shaking his hand and telling him he was glad to have him in class. Soon, 11-year-old Justin, who had a stormy home life, according to Talarico, started seeing a therapist provided by the school. Eventually, he joined a group of students who ate lunch in the classroom, and he began raising his hand to participate. That winter break, Justin brought Talarico a haphazardly wrapped gift: a cup decorated with snowflakes that he got at Dollar Tree.
