Random Acts of Kindness

     I have to share this story about one of the students in our class…

     Last week we were holding an in-class badminton tournament during our phys-ed classes. It was a regular bracket-style tournament where they played doubles games with an opposite-sex partner that was chosen randomly before the tournament started. When the time came for the finals we decided to hold off until the next gym class so that all of the students could watch the final games. Now remember how competitive some students are in Grade 5. This tournament was all that the students were talking about and some of them had even practiced during recess!

While when the time came for the final game one of our students was left without a partner as some students were absent that day. As we had wanted to get it done quickly to get to the next activity my cooperating teacher told him that he could pick whomever he wanted, girl or boy. You would think that the student would pick one of his best friends (most of our boys play on the same hockey team) or possibly one of the best students (to increase his chances of winning).

     I watched this student, however, walk over to the one girl who had gotten out of the tournament first. She has a medical condition that causes her to have difficulty running/walking and is often left out of many of student’s activities at recess. His reasoning for picking her, “She was out first, it was only fair that she got another chance.”

     My heart melted.