Dear Kevon, al­though I knew this day was com­ing, I was still sur­prised-not to men­tion hap­py-at the news last week that the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court set you free on Jan­u­ary 25. Your sto­ry has al­ways haunt­ed me and made me ques­tion our jus­tice sys­tem. Look­ing back on the 15 months we spent to­geth­er in my CXC Eng­lish lan­guage class, I re­call how you trans­formed from a qui­et, guard­ed teenag­er to an out­spo­ken, open, smil­ing young man. On the first day of class, you wrote very lit­tle about your­self, but I soon re­alised that you pos­sessed an amaz­ing amount of per­se­ver­ance. When my CXC Eng­lish class of 30 stu­dents in the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) end­ed up to be a class of eight, you were among the fi­nal group be­cause you came to class re­li­gious­ly. We both knew that you would not be tak­ing the Eng­lish lan­guage ex­am last June, but that didn't mat­ter to you. You just want­ed to be in that Eng­lish class.

"Eng­lish was one of my favourite sub­jects in school," you wrote, "and I didn't get to do it be­cause I was locked up." The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the day that you were ar­rest­ed would have made most peo­ple an­gry and bit­ter, but you have a pen­chant for tran­scend­ing neg­a­tiv­i­ty, and you al­ways make the most of your sit­u­a­tion. In­side YTC, you played foot­ball and pan. You par­tic­i­pat­ed in every pro­gramme you could, and you nev­er gave up com­ing to Eng­lish class. You were a dili­gent stu­dent who grew con­fi­dent and ex­pres­sive. I ad­mired your com­mit­ment to every­thing you tack­led. For me, one of your biggest ac­com­plish­ments was that you learned to love read­ing. VS Naipaul's Miguel Street and Kalisha Buchanon's Up­state, a nov­el about a teenage boy try­ing to main­tain ties with his fam­i­ly and girl­friend while he was in prison, were two of your favourite books.

One class when every­one wrote de­scrip­tive es­says, you showed me an es­say you wrote about me say­ing how I was more than a teacher. "You are al­ways car­ing. You are like a moth­er to us," you wrote, "and we ap­pre­ci­ate that." You spoke about your own moth­er with the ut­most re­spect, and noth­ing seemed to ex­cite you more than a vis­it from her. "My moth­er worked very hard to keep her chil­dren from get­ting in trou­ble," you said. "She al­ways in­stilled val­ues in us: Do good. Go to school. Work hard." Last night, I came across a let­ter I wrote to my Eng­lish class af­ter I fin­ished read­ing A Big Lit­tle Life: A Mem­oir of a Joy­ful Dog, Trix­ie. I in­clud­ed these thoughts from the au­thor, Dean Koontz: "This world is in­fi­nite­ly lay­ered and mys­te­ri­ous. Every day of our lives, we see far more than we can com­pre­hend. We want a sim­ple world, but we live in one that is mag­nif­i­cent­ly com­plex.

"Rather than ac­knowl­edge the ex­quis­ite round­ness of cre­ation, we take it in thin slices, and we view each slice through tint­ed, dis­tort­ing lens­es that fur­ther di­min­ish its beau­ty and ob­scure truths that await recog­ni­tion. Com­plex­i­ty im­plies mean­ing, and we are afraid of mean­ing. "The life of a seam­stress is no small­er than the life of a queen, the life of a child with Down syn­drome no less filled with promise than the life of a philoso­pher, be­cause the on­ly sig­nif­i­cant mea­sure of your life is the pos­i­tive ef­fect you have on oth­ers, ei­ther by con­scious acts of will or by un­con­scious ex­am­ple." As you re-en­ter the re­al world, I hope you will re­mem­ber that let­ter. Be kind. Be good. Con­tin­ue your stud­ies and don't stop play­ing foot­ball. Search for your pur­pose in life. Sur­round your­self with true friends-hon­est young men who work hard to achieve their goals. A friend can on­ly be a per­son who will add some­thing pos­i­tive to your life.

Nev­er al­low any­one or any­thing to dis­il­lu­sion you. When times get tough, re­mem­ber you have al­ways been a sur­vivor. More im­por­tant­ly, when times were tough, you found a way to move for­ward in your life. I know that those lessons from A Big Lit­tle Life came to my mind when I de­cid­ed to write this let­ter to you be­cause of what you wrote for me on the first day of class when I asked which an­i­mal you would choose to be in life. You wrote, "I would choose to be a dog be­cause of its free­dom." You are free now. Make the most of your life. In my heart I feel that you are des­tined to do great things be­cause I have seen you demon­strate amaz­ing com­pas­sion. Find some­one to give hope to you in your com­mu­ni­ty like you used to help the new lads, es­pe­cial­ly the very young ones, who came to YTC. I will miss you in class, Kevon. I know I will keep look­ing at that emp­ty chair in our class­room and imag­ine when you sat there, but I am hap­py that you are be­gin­ning this new chap­ter in your life. My life is so much rich­er be­cause you were one of my stu­dents. I will nev­er for­get you.

Sin­cere­ly,

Mrs Ja­cob

• Next week: As promised, the boys tack­le a po­et­ry class. And com­ing soon: The sur­pris­ing and shock­ing re­sults of the CXC Eng­lish lan­guage ex­am