"Mrs. Wilkinson, ***'s a boy..."

I have had quite a few embarrassing moments in my classroom - backing into a trash can and getting stuck so that a football player had to pull me out, stapling my own finger, slipping and landing flat on my butt with a thump, calling students the wrong name after being corrected countless times, the list could go on and on. I made the biggest blunder of all time the past week and a half. 

I have this amazing student who is kind, articulate, polite. He's everything you hope for in a student. He has a gender neutral name, and I, without bothering to check, assumed he was a girl. I truly believe he would have avoided creating any embarrassment for me for the entire year and not said a word. Thankfully, he has a very good friend who is just as amazing as he is. The friend very politely, at the end of class when no one was listening, pulled me aside and said, "Mrs. Wilkinson, *** is a boy, and you keep calling him a girl. He even wrote it on his name tent." Talk about feeling small! 

I have embarrassed this poor child repeatedly for over a week! And when I went to (privately) apologize the young man did all he could to make me feel better. What amazing parents to teach a child such grace! What an amazing kid to have such grace for others at the ripe old age of 12! I hope I'm as gracious when I grow up!