Dani the Saint

On Thursday, I had my after-school group of thirteen-year-olds discuss what they would do in certain situations to practice conditionals. First, I gave them an article about an American man who deposited a fake check for $95,000 on a whim and, to his surprise, the bank credited him with the money (a true story: you can check it out at http://www.goodthink.com/writing/view_stories.cfm?id=11&page_id=2). Would my students keep the money? There was near-consensus: six of the seven kids there said yes, they would, no question.

We got around the table to Dani, a tall, skinny kid whose hair is the only thing that's out-of-control about him. Whereas the other kids run around, lock each other in and out of places (including the balcony outside our classroom and a nearby refrigerator) and generally go crazy during our breaktimes, Dani always stays seated at the table with hands folded, looking at me with an expression of "Kids, what can you do about 'em?" He's well-behaved, but also well-liked; all the girls wanted Dani on their team last week when we were creating rules for new sports.

When it came to the question of keeping the money, Dani was appalled. "No, I would not keep the money because it does not belong to me! I would not want to be a robber." I told him that technically the money was not the man's, but the bank had made the error in his favor. Dani was immutable in his opinions. He would keep the money under no conditions. I applauded him and moved on to the next question. What would the kids do with this extra money? Their answers showed their confusion about what $95,000 can buy these days.

"I would buy many houses and nice cars!" said Javi, whose sentiments were echoed by Alba and Pedro: nice houses, nice cars, maybe a few islands in the mix (Pedro also thought he might be able to buy his way to the presidency of the United States--"I'm the second Barack Obama!" he assured me). At the other end of the spectrum, Maria asserted, "I would buy a dog;" Nieves agreed. She too would buy a dog for just under 100 grand. Meanwhile, Jose Maria contemplated the question, then said, "I would buy Spiderman." I raised my eyebrows. "No wait, I would buy Spiderman and Superman. And then I would conquer the world."

Again to Dani. "Dani, if you legally had $95,000, what would you buy?" He looked very serious as he replied, "I would study at Oxford." None of this materialist stuff.

We moved on to a game where one person leaves the room and everyone has to come up with a solution to a problem. The person re-enters the room, listens to all the solutions, and then tries to guess what the original problem was. I gave them the problem of being on the sinking Titanic. Dani's response: "I would jump off, then swim behind the rescue boats."

"Why wouldn't you get in a rescue boat, Dani?" I asked.

"Because they would be full of women and children. It's okay, I would get used to the cold water."

To which I pretty much slammed my hand on the table in shock and shouted, "My God, this kid's a saint!" Dani turned bright red, making him look only more like the cherub he is.