Simple Choice - by Christopher

As my first week of full-time ICT teaching comes to a close, I just wanted to relate one quick story.

Yesterday, one of my first grade boys peed his pants while sitting calmly and quietly playing a computer spelling game. Near the end of the class, as we were beginning to close down the computers and line them up, he approached Serdar (my Turkish teaching partner) and I and asked us in broken English if he could go to the restroom. The entire front and back of his jeans were soaked. Serdar took him to the restroom and when they came back a few minutes later, their homeroom teacher was already waiting to take the class back to their homeroom. The boy followed his class up the stairs as though nothing had happened at all.

He never cried, he never caused a scene, and he never panicked. Or if he did panic, he didn't let it show. He held his head up, accepted his mistake, and moved along, all wıthout being told to and without uttering a single word of complaint.

This little boy helped me to accept the mistakes I've made this week. Seeing his courage in the face of total defeat reminded me that every moment of every day we are given a simple choice:

Pee our pants and cry about it, or pee our pants and move along. Clean out our drawers as best we can and rejoin our class.

Happy Weekend!