The Gold Medalist

The teacher sat crossed-legged on her oak desk. She stared at her middle school history class, patiently waiting for them to share what they thought of the writer's point of view on the constitutional amendments.

Just when she thought her students had decided not to participate in the discussion, a young girl in the front row began to splutter, shocked by what she had read.

The girl looked over at the boy beside her and pointed to the section which had caused such a violent reaction.

The boy squinted, "I have terrible vision, what does it say, Amelie?" He asked loudly, causing a few giggles to erupt around the room. His face flushed with embarrassment.

"Silas, it says that we have a right to protection from unreasonable search and seizures. They searched our bags today for no reason!" Amelie exclaimed, outraged over the blatant violation of her constitutional right.

The teacher smiled, she always taught the amendments on bag-search-day. It made the lesson applicable to her students' lives.

More and more faces began to contort with anger as their eyes reached the section Amelie and Silas had been animatedly discussing.

All of a sudden, with a splurge of forcefulness, a small boy from the back of the class called out, "How do they get away with this?"

Looking at Mrs. Henderson expectantly, her students waited for her to explain. All she offered was a shrug, trying to coax the children into discussing the topic further.

"Max, this is bullcrap! They've poisoned our minds. We didn't even know that they weren't allowed to go through our stuff." One boy shouted across the room.

Then, all of the students began to talk all at once. They pointed and discussed the topic with vigor, having more knowledge of the constitutional amendments than most adults.

For the first time all year, Mrs. Henderson had gotten their attention. She had finally succeeded in getting middle school kids to give a shit about something.

She decided right then she was having a feast and a few celebratory drinks tonight. She didn’t feel like a total failure today and that was good enough for her.

Feeling successful for the first time all year, Mrs. Henderson strolled up to the front of the classroom and looked at her students. Every face in the room eyed her eagerly. She held up a single coin, "This," She said, "Is a half-dollar coin. It is the reward for whoever can correctly tell me what the 19th amendment was."

Hands went up all over the room.

Despite it being February, Mrs. Henderson felt like she had had the best first day ever. She had been the children's teacher for months, however, she had not felt like a real teacher until today. Today, she actually taught them something. For the first time, they actually learned from her.

That day, Mrs. Henderson felt like a gold medal Olympian. She had conquered 13 year olds, and nothing else mattered.