Tough

While working through Call of the Wild with one of my 7th grade classes, I assigned a quick writing warm-up exercise to start the class: "Who is the toughest person you know and why?" The book deals with the protagonist becoming tougher as he encounters more challenges in the great white north. I paced the room while my students wrote, occasionally stopping to answer a question or two about the assignment. After a few minutes, I asked for volunteers to share some of their choices.
"I think the toughest person is..." one kid shot out the name of a wrestler that he had seen on television, but his classmates quickly pointed out that he had never "met"that wrestler and therefore he didn't count as someone he "knows."
"My older brother is mad tough," another kid piped up. "He can lift crazy heavy weights."
"That's not tough! That's strong!" other students disagreed.
"Same thing"
"You know who is wicked tough? My uncle. He was in prison and nobody messes with him"
"Nobody messes with my cousin either! Three guys tried to steal his car and he beat them all up by himself!"
This went on for a little while, with different students trying to define the essence of toughness while also playing a rousing game of "my dad is bigger than your dad."
Serena watched the proceedings from her desk in silence. I had a feeling that I knew what she had written. So I was surprised when her hand slowly came up.
"Serena, would you like to read what you have written?"
And so she did,
"The toughest person I know is my dad. He has been fighting cancer for the past 2 years and has not given up."
The hum of the air heater had never sounded louder than it did in the silence that followed. My usually rowdy kids sat in silence staring at their hands.
"She wins," one kid finally spoke up.
We moved on to the next assignment.