A true lesson in compassion
Published 2:56 pm Thursday, June 11, 2015
A TV game show offers the challenge, “Are You As Smart As a 5th Grader?” That’s fine as an intellectual exercise, but the query today is “Are You As Compassionate As a 5th Grader?”
The question is prompted by a report by Boyd Huppert, a reporter for a Minneapolis-St. Paul TV station, whose weekly “Land of 10,000 Stories” feature tells an inspiring tale in the state. In this one, Huppert introduces us to five fifth-grade boys who noticed that another boy, not in their class, was being bullied on the playground by other classmates. They took action: They invited the boy, James Willmert, to join them at their table at lunch. Their kind act was the beginning of a real friendship among them all.
Huppert begins with the boys’ motivation: “Why pick on someone,” Jack Pemble begins to ask, as Jake Burgess finishes his question, “who has special needs?” (Gus Gartzke, Tyler Jones and Landon Kopischke make up the rest of the kind crew.) Jack and Jake are good at finishing each other’s thoughts: “They were like, using him and taking advantage of him,” Jake told Huppert. “Because he’s easier to pick on and it’s just not right,” Jack adds.
As the friendship progressed, the boys learned that James was adopted from an orphanage in Colombia, and that six years later his new father was killed in a bicycle accident, Huppert reported. So the boys have made sure to include James in playground sports, and computer games.
“They’re changing him,” says Margi Willmert, James’ mom. “We just got a basketball hoop last week because he now loves basketball.”
Like many children who are bullied, James was reluctant to go to the playground after lunch. But the boys changed that, too.
“He used to not want to go out for recess or anything, it would be like a struggle,” Margi Willmert told Huppert. “And now he can barely eat his lunch to get outside to play with those guys.” They often play touch football, and make sure James gets plenty of turns carrying the ball, and scoring a touchdown.
“I love you guys,” James tells his friends after scoring.
Jake explained to Huppert how they helped James in another way: “We’re like, ‘Do you have any sports games?’?” Jake said. “And he was like, ‘No, I don’t have any video game systems.’ So that’s when I came up with the idea.”
With some of their own money, and money from their parents, the boys gave James a new play station and video games.
It was the first time friends from school had ever come to play with James, Huppert reported.
“Every one of them was smiling like crazy,” Margi Willmert said. “I’ll never forget it. Never.”
The boys’ compassion so impressed their teacher, Mallory Howk, she nominated them for the Mankato Area Public Schools Spirit of Youth Award, which they were given.
On the playground, talking to Huppert, James has his arms around his friends’ shoulders. “All these guys are the best friends anybody could ask for,” he said.
And such an example for us all, young and old.
