From The Storyteller
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Dark Side
Growing up, we had, what I think of as a house rule, "Don't Cheat", which included looking (without permission) at another person’s schoolwork. Believing cheating was a major biggie, it was not until my 8th grade gym class that I was faced with the question of whether or not to cross over to the dark side. I was captain of our gym class team. At the end of each class the teacher would award points with an end of year prize for the team with the most points. The prize, a much coveted, free gym period to play whatever we wanted. As team captain I had the critical job of accurately recording those points on the back of our team’s roster card. In the 8th grade, things this important warranted very close attention, so tracking who else got points and how many was also my job. At the end of the first marking period, believing to be in first place, I was shocked to learn we were a distant second by five points. Accepting this to be my error, I vowed to pay even more attention to future point awards. At the end of the second marking period, I learned we were now ten points behind, and I faced the truth. The team captain for the leading team was cheating by writing down extra points. Now I was faced with either crossing to the dark side or be true to my conviction of playing by the rules. To an 8th grade boy, complaining to a teacher about another boy’s cheating was as deep into the dark side as a kid could go. Thus, I chose to be true to my convictions, and began playing by the "new" rules of point recording. By the end of the third marking period, we were tied for first, and yes, my team won that free day at the end of the year. Moral: Playing by the rules is important. |