Little Tommy was doing very poorly in math. His parents had tried everything: tutors, flash cards, special learning centers — in short, everything they could think of. Finally in a last ditch effort, they took Tommy down and enrolled him in the local Catholic school.
After the first day, little Tommy came home with a very serious look on his face. He didn’t kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Tommy was hard at work. His mother was amazed.
She called him down to dinner and to her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word and in no time he was back hitting the books as hard as before.
This went on for sometime, day after day while the mother tried to understand what made all the difference. Finally, little Tommy brought home his report card. He quietly laid it on the table and went up to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his mom looked at it and to her surprise, little Tommy got an A in math. She could no longer hold back her curiosity.
She went to his room and said, “Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?”
Little Tommy looked at her and shook his head, “No.”
“Well then,” she replied, “was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? WHAT was it?”
Little Tommy looked at her and said, “Well, on the first day of school, when I saw that guy on the wall nailed to the big plus sign, I knew they weren’t fooling around.”
