Can You Spell "Ice Cream?"

The word of the month in my elementary school was “empathy.” The principal and the teachers had stressed to all of the children the importance of identifying and understanding others’ feelings. That lesson was reinforced every Friday in the morning announcements with the recitation of individual examples of empathetic behavior by the children in the different grades. My own unfulfilled attempt at empathy went unannounced until now.

One Friday morning, after I administered and then collected the first-graders’ spelling test (10 words that started with the letters Q-U plus a bonus word), a sensitive little boy, Michael, came to the front of the classroom and said shyly, “I was wondering how I did on the test.”

Mrs. T will grade them on Monday when she returns, I told him.

He was disappointed with that answer. His classmates were preoccupied with other matters more important to six year olds and didn’t notice our private conversation. What’s the harm, I thought, of checking his test myself? I found it and quickly scanned the words.

You got just one wrong, I told him cheerily. You left out the “e” in “quite.”

It was not the result he was expecting. Michael’s lower lip started to tremble.

No, that’s good, I reassured him.

“No,” he said. “My dad told me that I couldn’t have ice cream tonight unless I spelled all 10 words right, and I REALLY wanted ice cream!” 

What had I done? My seemingly good intention was not going unpunished. Thinking quickly, I told him that he did get 10 words because he had spelled the bonus word correctly.

“It’s not the same,” Michael said.

But the test is not official until Mrs. T grades it, I said, somewhat desperate now.

Michael was inflexible. “I’m going to have to tell my dad when I get home today.”

Had it been possible I would have given ice cream on the spot to this noble little hero with his overdeveloped sense of righteousness.