MANILA, Philippines — He was teased for his small built and brainy demeanor, but when the bespectacled Filipino pulled out his smarts and delivered his quick wits, the jokes turned into admiration.
Ten-year-old Darren Diaz came through with straight A’s in an elementary school in the city of Alpharetta, Georgia, earning him an education award from United States President George W. Bush.
“It was exhilarating, exciting. I didn’t expect it. I just don’t expect things… they just pop in my face,” Darren told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, his undeniably American accent coming through the phone.
Darren was the only Filipino among 12 fifth graders of Cogburn Woods Elementary School who were given certificates for academic achievement from the White House through the President’s Academic Awards Program on their promotion to Middle School on May 25.
Established in 1983, the program “was designed to help principals recognize and honor those students who have achieved high academic goals by their hard work and dedication to learning,” according to the program’s fact sheet posted on the website of the US National Association of Elementary School Principals.
Darren’s certificate, the President’s Award for Educational Achievement, is given to students “that show outstanding educational growth, improvement, commitment or intellectual development in their academic subjects.”
“We were really thrilled when it was announced during the promotion ceremony… I didn’t know that he had an award, and I was teary-eyed, I felt light-headed and the parents around me were looking at me,” said the proud mother, Rhea Diaz, an OB-Gyne who set aside her practice to attend to her three children after the family migrated to the US eight years ago.
“He was the smallest one on stage,” Diaz said with a chuckle.
Diaz and husband Dindo, a computer programmer, knew their first born was special as early as he turned one. While other babies could only speak syllables on their first birthday, Darren spoke straight and showed a sharp photographic memory.
While he was still developing his motor skills, the boy, who stayed in the Philippines until he was two and a half, immediately developed a fondness for books and made his parents read him to sleep.
“We read to him every day. At first there were Barney books, and then as he grew, he quickly graduated to the encyclopedia. We read him 100 pages every night and he knew if we skipped a page,” the mom said.
Now, Darren could finish novels overnight and constantly yearned for more pages to read through. It helped that programs on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel were also favorites, filling his insatiable thirst to know more when all his books have been covered from page 1 to end.
“He has a great vocabulary and he was the one who taught English to his yaya (his nanny, also a Filipino),” said Diaz, laughing.
He even had time to learn how to play the piano and get physical in soccer and swimming, though he mostly toyed with educational games in his laptop as too much exhaustion usually caused his asthma to flare up.
It came as no surprise for the Diaz couple that Darren proved smarter than children his age when they enrolled him in kindergarten. When he was tested for the entry level, then five-year-old Darren’s intellectual level showed he could already compete with first graders.
