Romão's Day of Happiness / Day of Sadness

Romão failed 8th grade on account of Portuguese class, so he has to repeat. Our neighbors tell us he was really bummed when he found out, we were on vacation at the time. His former classmates who are moving on to 9th have been teasing him and he's discouraged about having to spend a whole year with the little kids, as he calls the new 8th graders. But, what luck, when the school schedules were posted, Romão's name appeared on the 9th grade roster. Oh happy day! Romão immediately began running back and forth to tell everyone the good news. On the first day of class he dressed up in his nicest, cleanest clothes, including his ever hilarious snake pants and the new bookbag he bought during vacation, and marched down to school for morning classes when all the 9th and 10th graders study. Unfortunately, as the most responsible people in Romão's life we had to investigate this unexplained windfall. We contemplated letting this one slide, but we knew it
would catch up with him eventually since the school reviews everyone's academic history when they try to graduate 10th grade. Sure enough, Romão's place in 9th was a mistake. Luc went to the school archive, aka an old cardboard box under the secretary's desk, where all the giant class transcripts reside, and using a yardstick to read across the cumbersome document he clearly saw written in red ink 'não transitar' not passing on Romão's line. The vice-principal told Romão to leave and come back in the afternoon to study with the rest of the 8th graders. Romão can't read very well and hardly ever studies, so in a way he doesn't deserve to pass 8th grade, but at the same time there are others worse off academically moving on to 9th, which doesn't seen fair and makes the system seem arbitrary. Romão attributes his misfortune to bad luck. The national exams were the same way with some good kids failing. For us as teachers its hard to motivate students
to study and put effort into school work when they don't see this as directly linked to academic success.