고등학교 공통영어1 (NE능률 민병천) 연계 글

Every morning on my way to school, I saw older neighbors hurry across the wide road in front of our school. The light for pedestrians stayed green for only twenty seconds, and many of them were still in the middle of the road when it turned red. One morning in April, Mrs. Yeom, who lived behind our school, stopped halfway with her cane while drivers started to honk at her. I ran out and walked beside her, but I knew that one student could not walk beside every neighbor each morning.

That afternoon, I told the student council what I had witnessed. A few members said that drivers simply needed to be more patient. However, our president, Seha, asked us to gather facts before we complained to anyone. "We can change people's minds by showing them clear numbers," she said. For the next five school days, six of us stood at the crosswalk with stopwatches before the first bell. We asked the neighbors to let us time their crossing, and nearly all of them gladly agreed. Most of the forty-two older walkers we timed needed between twenty-five and thirty seconds, and Mrs. Yeom needed twenty-eight.

Next, we wrote a letter that requested a longer signal from the district office. Seha encouraged all of us to add one sentence about something we had seen ourselves. We made the letter stronger by attaching a table of our forty-two times. We also persuaded Mrs. Yeom to sign it, and she wrote her name slowly at the bottom in large letters.

Three weeks after we submitted the letter, an official from the district office came to the crosswalk and timed the walkers himself. His stopwatch showed almost the same times as ours, so he agreed that our table was accurate. In June, the light for pedestrians began to stay green for thirty seconds instead of twenty. Now the longer signal allows Mrs. Yeom to reach the other side without hurrying. She often waves to us from the far corner.

Before that spring, I thought that caring meant walking beside someone who needed help. Now I know that we can also care for people by changing the things that make their days harder.