(Minghui.org) My son was a problem student when he was in high school. Once ranked at the bottom of his class, he graduated with top scores and was admitted to a prestigious art college. He is now pursuing his graduate degree and has a promising career ahead of him.
Because my wife and I didn’t teach our son well when he was young, his academic performance was very poor beginning in elementary school. It got worse when he went to high school. His exam scores were almost the worst in his class. Not only that, he was dating a girl in high school and picked up many bad habits such as stealing and smoking.
My wife and I tried to teach him better, but he said, “I’m grown up now and understand how things are. You can control my actions, but you cannot control my heart. Whatever you say won’t change anything.”
Out of options, I introduced the book Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Dafa, to him. My wife and I took up Dafa in 2012 and we were very impressed with its great principles.
When my son was halfway through the book, he told my wife, “Mom, I know what to do. Please do not worry about me. I will handle things well on my own.”
After that, he studied harder, quit all his bad habits, and even persuaded his girlfriend to focus on her studies.
Because he had some artistic talent, we enrolled him in a painting class so that he could go to an art school. Dafa gave him wisdom. Without much practice, he made quick breakthroughs. The first time he took the college entrance exam, he was admitted to an art school, but he was not satisfied with it. So he retook the exam the following year and was admitted to his dream art school.
His high school art teacher, who had taught at the school for ten years, was proud of him. “He is only the second student to be admitted to this academy of fine arts since I've been teaching here.”
While he was in college, my son continued to study very hard to catch up with what he had missed in high school.
At an exhibition of artworks in his senior year, many students and professors spoke highly of his painting. A friend told him that the dean of another college really liked his work and had come three times to talk to my son, but he wasn’t there.
When my son happened to be standing by his painting one day, another famous professor stopped by and said, “This student is great! Very professional!” My son was very modest and didn’t even tell the professor that he was the one who painted it.
The first time my son took the exam for graduate school, he failed. The second time he took it, there was an important question that was obviously written by a professor who was not in the arts. Initially, my son wanted to quit taking the exam. But then he thought he would explain things so well that whatever professor was assigned to grade his paper would not include such unprofessional questions on future exams. Without any thought to the results, my son wrote a lengthy answer of about 3,000 words. To his surprise, he earned a high score and was admitted to the graduate school.
A friend of mine was stunned to hear my son had been admitted to graduate school. His son was about the same age as mine and had graduated college in the same year. Both young men failed in their first try to pass the graduate school entrance exams. They both tried again. My son succeeded on his second try, but my friend’s son still failed, even after he’d spent 200,000 yuan on using his connections to try to get his son into graduate school.
My son’s high school art teacher often shared his story with other students to motivate them to study harder.
At my son’s graduate school, it is common for upperclass students to sell the artworks that they purchased to underclass students at a higher price, thus making a profit by way of the price difference. Knowing that my son, now an upperclassman, is an honest person, many students came to him to authenticate the art works. He always handled and balanced things well.
Some of his teachers encouraged him to do the same as the other upperclass students. But he felt bad about making money off the younger students, who had little experience in verifying the works and were easily deceived. In addition, some students were poor, and he didn’t want to take their money, either.
My son’s advisor asked his advisees to take turns applying for a certain scholarship, so that each of the students could receive it once during their four years of graduate study. When it was my son’s turn to apply in his second year, the other students also submitted applications, including the student who was awarded the scholarship the year before.
My son didn’t get upset. He said to me, “Let it be. Whoever deserves the scholarship will get it.” It turned out the professor who liked my son’s works during his senior year exhibition in college was the one who made the final decision about the scholarship to the graduate school. As soon as he saw my son’s name, he remembered him and gave him the scholarship.
My son later sold some of his art works online to earn some income. One buyer spent over 1,000 yuan on several pieces. But after he received the items, he changed his mind and asked if he could return them. In most cases, such merchandise is not returnable, but my son agreed. Although there was a glitch during the refund process, everything was straightened out in the end. The buyer said that he was impressed with how my son handled the return request and that it was rare to find people like my son who kept his word.
When the buyer returned the art works, he gave my son a calligraphy set from a famous calligrapher in China. My son later met this calligrapher, who taught him a great deal.
A student in the same class was somewhat envious of my son. He often ridiculed him: “You don’t seem to be very smart and you never fight for anything, but I see that you are never left out of anything good.”
This student couldn’t understand why and even went to a fortuneteller to ask about my son. The fortuneteller told him, “This person is blessed.”
I know that Falun Dafa has blessed my son and given him the wisdom to do well in his college and graduate school studies. May 13th marked the 30th anniversary of Falun Dafa’s public introduction, and I hereby use this article to express my deepest gratitude to Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa.