The Simple Answers

At the end of every period, while the students are zipping their bags and rustling their papers, I ask them, "What's my philosophy?"

"Leave the room cleaner than we found it," they all reply in mantra-like dirge. They may sound apathetic, but truly, they understand this principle.

The "It" girl, the soccer star, the class clown—they all crouch down, equalized by the custodial task at hand. The jock may have dropped the cheeto, but the prom queen stoops down and paints her fingers with carpet grit and cheesy powder. Even I, the teacher, am not above the policy. I too use my bare hands picking up shattered potato chips and edges of paper torn from unsuspecting corners.

The students roam the classroom; no one loyal to their own territory. Trash, regardless of origin, is collected and disposed.

But every day, there is one student, Jay, huddled around his desk at clean-up time. While the others travel the room like nomads, he stays home at his desk picking up pencils.

Jay, like all the students his age, has trouble keeping his pencil on his desk. When he scrutinizes a passage from his textbook, or when he twists to access his backpack, his pencil rolls onto the floor.

All the students drop their pencils at least three times during class, so this isn't a unique problem. But Jay has taken this common pencil problem and created a wildly unique (and hilarious) solution.

Every time he drops a pencil, he simply reaches into his Naruto pencil box and pulls out a new pencil. At first, I thought he was lazy for not standing up and reclaiming his writing utensil. But after careful study, I've noticed that it is more efficient. In the middle of an essay, he would need to push out his chair, crouch down, find his pencil, stand back up, sit back down, scoot his chair back in; grabbing a new pencil circumvents the whole tedious procedure.

And so, by the end of the 50 minute period, Jay is ankle deep in pencils. Then, when it comes time to enact my philosophy, he springs out of his chair and relines his box with 10+ pencils. Of course I've told him that this particular solution is inefficient, and that it makes a mess. But inside, I secretly applaud him. I envy his youthful problem-solving abilities, unmolded by the "right way" of doing things. How can I punish him? He leaves his area in better condition than he found it.

Even if it is silly...it's a simple, simply charming answer.