Just When I Thought I Knew It All
6 Dec
One of the downsides to wearing hats and scarves in winter is the likelihood of inadvertently pulling off an earring, which is precisely what I did in front of the Activeboard this morning. Scanning the carpet, my eye landed on a discarded fingernail, which was enough to dissuade me from further recovery efforts.
“Oh, have you never tried biting off a pencil eraser and using it as an earring back?” my colleague quickly suggested.
Um. No.
Then I thought about it for a second.
How absolutely brilliant. I wish I had known this before dragging my husband through the warren of stores beneath the railway station last year, searching to replenish another batch of missing earring backs.
There was just one catch. I wasn’t about to bite a pencil eraser off. I’m game for most things, but sticking a third grade classroom pencil in my mouth and gnawing off the eraser head isn’t one of them.
Anticipating my hesitation, my friend suggested, “You can use a brand new one.”
“No, I think I’ll use a scissor and cut one off this pencil,” I said, selecting a slightly used one from my pencil holder.
Harvesting the earring back was surprisingly easy. I pierced the white, rounded nib into the earring post behind my lobe and it held. All day.
If you want to look REALLY edgy, leave the pencil attached. People will think you’re a Punk Rock Accountant.
I loved this line, Sheila. “Scanning the carpet, my eye landed on a discarded fingernail, which was enough to dissuade me from further recovery efforts.” I just had to giggle. It is said that a teacher has 200 thoughts a minute while scanning children’s faces, their engagement in learning activities, thier interactive behaviors, and the next teaching point while listening to answers from the last teaching point…oh, yea, and then there is the instant problem solving that happens along the way, I.e. scanning the environment for yet one more resource to enhance our teaching. Really, how could we expect a student to attend to our words of wisdom with one earring bouncing around from its pendulous lair while the other side of our major facial focusing equipment is sans its partner. There’s more to the art of teaching than less informed constituents could really bear.