Mr. McLeod was not trusted by the whole community because of an incident that happened earlier with a boy in the same position as Norstadt. Norstadt is receiving tutoring from Mr. McLeod and the whole town feels uneasy about it because there are rumors that say that Mr. McLeod sexually abused one of his former students before they both got into a car accident and the student died. Norstadt did not know about these rumors until the end of the movie. The whole time before he knew he didn't have a problem learning from Mr. McLeod and did not have any problems with him. If Norstadt had never heard the rumor he would have never came to the conclusion that Mr. McLeod did anything wrong before. Norstadt comes to the moral certainty that he can trust Mr. McLeod when they are both on the beach confronting each other about the trial and what really happened. Norstadt was questioning Mr. McLeod about if he had done anything wrong and if all of the rumors were true. Mr. McLeod would not tell him directly but on purpose. Norstadt ends up thinking about it and realizing that Mr. McLeod would never do anything like what he accused of and that he can be trusted like he has been trusting him before.
    It is so important that Norstadt comes up with the moral certainty that he can trust Mr. McLeod because he wants Norstadt to come up with the realization on his own and not because someone told him. When they were having this argument Norstadt was asking Mr. McLeod if he had done anything wrong and that if he just tells him the answer he will believe him either way. Mr. McLeod told him to think if he had done anything bad to him and given him anything else but friendship and compassion. Norstadt continued to ask and wanted Mr. McLeod to tell him the answer so he could believe him. Mr. McLeod wants Norstadt to come up with the answer on his own and with no one else's help and to use the logic and reason he has learned with him to figure it out. I think McLeod does this for a reason. I think that he makes Norstadt figure it out by himself in order to get him to make his own decisions and opinions. If someone isn't skeptical about rumors or anything that people say then they just accept everything that they hear. I think Mr. McLeod was trying to get Norstadt to get out of that kind of mentality in order to prepare him for the school or even just everything in life.
    I also think that Norstadt's pass or fail way of judging people was interesting. He does this many times in the movie and not only to Mr. McLeod but to his family. This happens on many occasions with Mr. McLeod. He wants Norstadt to dig holes which will ultimately help him understand math in a different way but instead of going in with an open mind and accepting it, he totally just shut down and did it out of guilt and anger. This also comes up when Mr. McLeod makes him angry in parts of the movie and Norstadt goes and tells his friends all about Mr. McLeod. He also does this to his own family. When his family makes him mad he just shuts down. For example his sister tried to help him at one point and he just completely closed up and shut her out even though she was trying to help him. The same happened with the mother and sister. Once one thing goes wrong he judges them very fast. I think this links into the point I was making about being skeptical about things. Norstadt does not stop and wonder if things are done for a reason or if they are going to help him in the future but instead he is very closed minded about everything and rejects everything that immediately seems foreign or strange. Even if Mr. McLeod is trying to teach him something that might help him in the future, if it is immediately bad or he doesn't like it he will judge it.