Simple mistakes

Today, one of my 3rd grade students wrote "My name is Hell."

She was trying to write "My name is Helen."

It reminds me of a story about my first time at summer camp:

I was 22 years old, and put in charge of 13 middle schoolers. The camp was made for smart kids - those that scored unusually high on SATs and that sort of thing. So, I had gone into it with the idea that my kids would be extraordinarily competent, which was not the case at all.

Alex was a prime example of that. Almost every day, he left me shaking my head, wondering how he had survived this far in life. Most of the other boys hated him, because he was severely socially incompetent, and tried to annoy everyone into liking him, which just made things worse.

One day, at the close of an activity, we were about to head back to our dorms when Alex told me that he needed to use the restroom.

"Can't you just wait 5 minutes?" I said.
"No, I need to go now," he said.

So, I waited along with the rest of the boys in the hall outside the restroom. A few minutes went by. Then a few more. "Is he finished yet?" one of my kids asked. I had a kid knock on the door (it was a one person bathroom), but Alex said to go away and that he wasn't finished yet.

This went on for about a half hour more. I would say that me and my boys sat outside that restroom for a good 40 minutes, just waiting on Alex to finish the job.

I'd stationed one of my kids at the door to periodically ask Alex if he was finished yet. Finally, he said, "Hey, Alex says he wants to talk to you."

I went up to the door, and I told Alex to unlock it so I could talk to him. I thought by that point that maybe he was have some medical problem, even though he'd been saying that everything was alright.

When I opened the door, I was surprised. Well, I would say that 'surprised' is an understatement.

Alex was sitting on the toilet. His pants were around his ankles. They were soaked. His shoes were soaked. The whole floor was covered in piss, toilet water, and poop.

"Can you go back to the dorm and get me my poncho?" he said. "I flushed the toilet, but it got clogged up and overflowed."

"Why didn't you get out of the way?" I asked. Toilets are fast, but they're not that fast.

"I don't know," he said.

To this day, I can imagine poor Alex, sitting on the toilet, feeling all that disgusting water reach up to his private parts and pour onto his legs and pants. He just sits there, doing absolutely nothing about it but just waiting it out.

The next day at morning meetings, I told my co-workers the story. Since I was young and new to the job, it was definitely one of the most ridiculous things I'd experienced. A kid flushes the toilet, it starts to overflow, so he just sits there, flushes it again, and lets it overflow on him without getting out of the way. Then, to top it off, he asks for a poncho.

Later that day my boss sat me down and told me that I was wrong for telling the story to my co-workers. She said I was making fun of my kids, and that she had expected more of me. I remember thinking that she was totally wrong, but I said sorry anyways.

But, you know what? Now, I think maybe she's right. I'm not totally sure, but I kinda do feel guilty for making fun of him behind his back, even though he was one of the worst kids I'd ever worked with.

Anyways, the point is that when I first saw Helen's paper, I kinda wanted to show it off as it was. But then, I thought that even though she'll never know, there was a part of me that felt like it was wrong. So, at the end of class, before she left her seat to line up, I said, "Hey, what's your English name?"

"Helen," she said.

I helped her spell it out phonetically, and then I erased the 'l' and wrote 'en.'

"My name is Hell."

Funny? Yeah, kinda. Embarrassing? I don't know. She's a third grader. I doubt she cares too much. Unethical if I say "Hey, look at this hilarious mistake my student did!"? Not sure. It's one of those moral dilemmas I'll get to ponder for the next few decades.

Either way, check out the picture. It's really cute, just like her. I hung it up with the rest of the class' papers on the wall.