By Karen Bil Ratzlaff 

As a new school year starts, we are reminded of one Sister who chose to work with children who would never be able to read or write or do simple math. What motivated this teacher to reach out to the "unteachable"?

It started with John, a boy with Down's Syndrome.

Sr. Agnes Jerome Murphy wondered what more could be done to help John have a better life. So at Star of the Sea School in Honolulu where she originally taught 8th grade, Sister developed a curriculum for students with mental retardation. Later, when these students were "mainstreamed," she turned her attention to the severely handicapped--kids who were often deformed, and given to head banging, skin picking and indiscriminate shouting. Most couldn't talk. She chose to work with these children because no one else would. They were considered hopeless, but she saw them as "works of God."

With two rooms and a $3000 loan she created a day-care program of "last resort."