“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” Matthew 7:5.
Cruel thoughts entered my mind as I scrutinized the girl sitting in the desk that was in front of mine, but the next row over. I sat in the very back in front of the cold, humming refrigerators of Mrs. Tomlinson’s Lifetime Nutrition and Wellness classroom. Mrs. Tomlinson was sitting at her desk grading papers, and yelling at the class to stop talking so much while we watched an Alton Brown video on how to bake sugar cookies. I was so irritated at this girl! She just sat there texting the entire time not paying attention to anything, it was so rude. She was probably just texting her boyfriend talking about God knows what. She kind of looks like the promiscuous type, her hair has been dyed, or she got highlights it’s hard to tell. Her Mexican accent is so thick she speaks English somewhat poorly. Every time Mrs. Tomlinson gives us directions she always has to ask me what we’re doing because she missed it from texting her significant other. I think her name is Rosie. She looks to be almost five feet tall, a tiny little thing, with rectangular pink and brown glasses.
“Okay everybody I need you to pass your papers up with the five facts and summary from the Alton Brown video.” Mrs. Tomlinson vociferated from the front of the classroom as she turned on the incandescent lights. I ripped the paper out of my notebook getting paper dust on my desk from the perforation in the notebook. “We had to write down five facts and a summary?” Rosie turned around in her desk to ask me. Uh, duh. She told us that like five times while we were watching the video. Maybe you wouldn’t have to ask me if you were actually paying attention. I thought as I brushed the paper dust off my desk. “Yes the five facts had to be tips on how to bake the cookies and mix the dough. You’re summary was suppose to be an idea that you liked best when making the cookies.” I replied, passing my paper up to my friend Kasandra. “Dude, we really had to write all that?!” Rosie inquired with disbelief. “Yea, she yelled that out like five times while we were watching the video.” Kasandra replied. “Oh. Woops I didn’t know that.” Rosie told us with just a shrug. Why did she have to be so ignorant? Why can’t she see that this is free education that we are getting here? I mean children in other countries are begging to go to school to learn, and she is just sitting there texting on her phone, wasting time every single day. Not even trying to pay attention. When it came time to do our sugar cookie lab, Rosie was in my group. She helped out as much as she could I’ll give her that, but she still asked a lot of stupid questions. After a while she started to grow on me, I realized that she was very nice, and tried her best.







Of course, this sounded awfully familiar. Aren’t I the one who sat there in my classrooms just daring the teacher to teach me something? I sat back and literally thought to myself, “I dare you to teach me something, you teacher who already got their degree, who had made it into teaching at a high school with a multitude of defiant and ignorant students. You teacher who knows everything about Spanish and U.S History, I dare you, teach me something, let’s see how well you do. Let me see how much you really know.” Who am I to judge Rosie when I’m sitting there pretending to play God, pretending to rule the world? Pretending to know everything, as if I have the right to sit back and think of Rosie the way I did. When I found out that Rosie had a lot of problems I felt really bad for thinking about her the way I did, in no way did she deserve that. She is really a funny and smart girl.
So why do we judge others? We constantly make instant assumptions about one another pretending to play God and think ourselves as superior to each other, our own human race. How do I know that you sitting there, in the audience right now, are judging me because of my faults as a human too?
Perhaps we as humans should teach each other that no one deserves to be judged. No one.