School can be a hard time for a lot of children. There are so many pressures. Yet some students are able to help others succeed. The boy in this story is one of them.
The school system should be based around encouraging kids to thrive. Sadly, it can sometimes feel like the opposite, with kids being punished for being different or struggling to complete their work to the “right” level.
And that’s without even considering peer pressure and bullying!
But some children have hearts of gold and actively do things to make everyone’s school years happy and successful. Winston Lee has one of those children in his high school class.
Recently, Lee, a history teacher, went viral for sharing his student’s selflessness.
It all began when Lee was teaching his students about World War Two.
When it came time for the test, one student managed to ace it.
The student earned five bonus points for doing so well.
But the student said that he didn’t want the bonus points.
Instead, he asked Lee to give the points to whichever kid scored lowest in the class.
Lee followed through with the student’s request. That meant that another student, who would have scored 58% now scored 63%, making him just about pass.
“He didn’t care if he considered them a friend, didn’t care if they were cool, didn’t matter to him what situation had caused them to score lower, he just wanted to help, be kind, commit a loving act.” – Winston Lee.
Lee posted this story to Facebook, stating that the student had given him so much hope.
Pretty soon, the post went viral. In just a few days, it had gained almost 100,000 reactions. It also had over 65,000 shares and 4,600 comments.
However, not everyone commenting agrees that the teacher did the right thing.
Some have praised the student and the teacher for awarding the points to the least successful student:
Others have complained, saying that it was wrong to award the low performing student points that they had not earned:
Both sides have a point. However, it’s important to understand the context of these actions. Remember, school is an incredibly tough time for some people. And it’s not like this test was an SAT or some other hugely important exam.
Instead, it was just a way of preparing students to take an exam later on. Of course, you can’t give a one student’s GPA to another student. And that’s not at all what this is.
And it’s also important to remember something else: exams don’t reflect a person’s integrity.
You may be the kindest, most hard-working person but still perform poorly on tests because you aren’t suited to learning in the way that the school system is teaching.
And if nothing else, the student who got given the points definitely learned an important lesson in kindness. At the end of the day, surely that’s more important than any exam?
Perhaps this will inspire the lower performing student to help others. It could also encourage them to do better next time around, as they now know that they are in a supportive community of peers.
At the end of the day, this story has only gained so much praise because it has highlighted how important it is to look out for one another.
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