Retired teacher Terry Lee Marzell shares a valuable life lesson she learned from one of her students.

Most educators would agree that it is important to teach our students valuable life lessons in addition to the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic. But every once in awhile, we teachers learn meaningful life lessons from our students. Here’s one I learned.

In my student teaching year (many moons ago), I was approached one day by one of my seniors. He said he needed to leave school immediately because he had injured his ankle while riding his motorcycle earlier in the day. He claimed he needed to leave school to seek medical attention. I suspected the young man was (dare I say) pulling my leg. I asked him to pull up his pants leg and let me see the ankle. Now, I am not a medical professional, but I had a work history that included six years as an admissions counselor at the local hospital’s emergency room. I was pretty sure I could spot an injury where there was one. But when I looked at the boy’s ankle, I did not see any obvious signs of injury. No bruises. No swelling. No cuts. No burns. Nothing. I told the student complacently that I thought he could survive until the end of the class, and I directed him to take his seat.

I also decided that after school I would contact his parents and report the attempted subterfuge. By the end of the school day, I had perfected my game plan. I would call the parents, express concern about the health of the young man, and then relate how he had concocted a fake injury to get out of class.

So after school I dialed the student’s home phone number, and the boy’s mother answered. “Good afternoon. I’m your son’s English teacher,” I said. “Today in class he told me he had injured his ankle. I am calling to find out if he is OK,” I explained. “Just a minute,” she responded. Then I heard her call out to her son. I heard her ask him if he had hurt his ankle. And I heard him respond, although I could not clearly discern what he was saying. But I allowed myself to feel a little bit smug, secure in the belief that the boy had just been caught in a lie.

A moment later, the mother was back on the line. “My son told me what happened today,” she said. “He has a trick ankle, and sometimes it pops out of the socket. When this happens, it really is quite painful,” she continued. “But our next door neighbor is a doctor, and when this happens, my son simply goes to the neighbor’s medical office, and the doctor pops it back into place,” she went on. He’d gone to the medical office after school, she told me, and the issue had been resolved. “So, yes, thank you for asking, he is OK,” she concluded.

As you can imagine, the smug expression promptly fell right off my face. Then I stammered something about making sure that this information was recorded on his school health record so that his teachers would be aware. Had I known, I would have let him go, of course. I expressed relief that he was no longer in pain, and said I looked forward to seeing him in class the next day.

I allowed myself a small ovation that I had not openly accused the student of dishonesty, not to his face and not to his mother. But still I felt chastened. Appropriately so. I learned an important life lesson that day. I learned that I could not make assumptions about the conditions of my students. Simply put, the kids deserve the benefit of the doubt.