Philip was a restless little boy. He was in the first grade and didn’t enjoy school at all. He didn’t want to learn. He didn’t enjoy the Czech language because he didn’t like to read. He didn’t like maths because he didn’t like to count. Art or work activities were a torture for him.
The teacher and his parents didn’t know what to do with him anymore. But one day something happened at school that convinced Philip that it was important to be able to read, know numbers, and even be able to make things.
It was Monday morning and Philip was getting ready for school. As slowly as possible, of course. He didn’t want to go that badly.
But when he got to school, he was in for a surprise. “Children, today instead of gym class we are going to go for a walk and try to find the plants we learned about in first grade. We’re going to take a quick walk,” the teacher said as she entered the classroom. All the children immediately lined up in the cloakroom and changed their clothes so they could go out as quickly as possible.
The teacher led them towards the park past the busy road. Along this road was a transparent high barrier. All the children were walking and talking nicely when suddenly there was a tremendous crash, as if someone had crashed, right next to Philip. Philip was frightened and jumped away, not knowing what was going on. He looked around and saw nothing. No crashed car, nothing like that. The teacher and the children stopped and looked around too, wondering what it could have been.
After a while, Philip saw something. There was a pile of feathers on the ground beside the road. Philip ran to it and was horrified to find that it was an injured bird. But it was so big! It had a huge, dangerous-looking beak and huge claws. When the teacher found out what Philip had found, she was very careful. The bird wasn’t moving, but it could still be dangerous. She knew she couldn’t help him alone with the children, so she hurriedly called the rescue station.
Then she said to the children, “Children, we must not get too close to him, he might feel threatened and attack us. It’s probably a falcon and has crashed into the transparent barrier by the road. Birds can’t tell it’s transparent glass. They think there’s nothing there. Now we’ll wait for the rescue team to arrive from the station and then we’ll go back to school.”
The children looked at the falcon and were very curious. Philip was the most interested. He had found it. After a while, the rescuers took the injured falcon away and thanked the children and the teacher for being so kind and for calling them.
At home that afternoon, Filip couldn’t stop thinking about the injured falcon. He found various books about birds and started reading. Although he did not like reading, he now enjoyed every word he could find about the falcon. He wanted to learn as much as he could, and he also wanted to find out how to prevent any more birds of prey from getting injured by the transparent wall by the road.
The next day he told the teacher what he had studied. How a falcon can be big, how to take care of it when it is in captivity, and why they fly into the city. The teacher listened attentively and was pleased that Philip was interested. Finally Philip added: “And I also know what we can do to make sure no more birds get hurt by the transparent wall. In the work activities we will make big birds out of paper and stick them on the wall. The other birds will see them and won’t attack. They will try to avoid them just like they did the wall.”
The teacher was very proud of Philip and praised his great idea. She promised to try to arrange for the manufactured birds to be glued there. And so they did.
After some time, the teacher got a call from the rescue station saying that the falcon was healthy, that they wanted to release it into the wild and that if she wanted to, she could come and see it with the children. The children were excited, especially Filip. He understood that it was important to be able to read, write and know all the numbers. Also, making things helped to save the other birds. He started to like school. He knew he would learn useful things there. From now on, he wished to be better at school.
