I have decided that all children should be equipped with mechanical pencils.

This past week was my first week of being back in the schools after the Christmas break and last week’s snow days.  Monday was a fantastic day.  My lesson went really well, I had some great discussion with the kids, and SPARK (Scholastic Preparation and Arts & Recreation for Kids, an afterschool program I help run) was jolly good fun.  Then Tuesday came.  And the Great Pencil Crisis struck.

Anyone who has ever taught a group of kids knows the importance of classroom management.  Without it, everything crumbles.  And today I learned this lesson yet again.

It was time for my anti-bullying lesson.  The classroom teacher stepped out of the room to go and make some copies.  The kids were kind of chatty, but that happens sometimes.  I started my lesson.  Then came time for the kids to do some writing on their own.  A hand goes up.

“My pencil is broken.  Can you sharpen it?”

“Can you sharpen it yourself?”

“No.  We’re not allowed because we broke her other pencil sharpener.”

So I take the pencil and she follows behind.  Another kid joins the ranks as I make my way up to the electric pencil sharpener.  As I sharpen the pencil, I discover that there is one of two problems here:  Either A:  This pencil sharpener sucks.  or B:  I do not know the secret of using this pencil sharpener.  (Or both.)    Nevertheless, I managed to sharpen the pencil to what I thought was a reasonable state.  I send kid #1 on her way and start sharpening pencil #2.

Kid #1 returns.

“When I started to write, it broke.”

After more pencil fiddling, I made the executive decision that this pencil sharpener wasn’t cutting it.  I looked for some pre-sharpened pencils on the teacher’s desk that I could just let the kids borrow, but there weren’t any.

“Is there another pencil sharpener you all can use?”

“There’s that one.”  (Collective, helpful children point to the hand crank one screwed into the wall.)  “”But it doesn’t work very well.”

“Well, try that one, because this one just isn’t working.”

The kids troop over to the pencil sharpener.  I notice that my two dull pencil students have turned into four dull pencil students.  After some work with the pencil sharpener, one of the kids walks up to me.

“That pencil sharpener isn’t working.”

The teacher is still out, but I look in her desk for a simple, hand held, hold-it-over-the-trash-while-you-sharpen kind of pencil sharpener.  I found one, and handed it off.  I decided that it was probably time to move the kids on to the next part of the lesson, even though my dull pencil kids wouldn’t have this part done.  I looked up at the clock.  11:20.

This is the part where I have a mental “crap!” moment.  I was twenty minutes into my lesson and I had no idea where the time had gone.  (I expect that the pencils know where it went, though.)  The kids were also even chattier than before.  The problem with giving so much attention to a couple of students is that you tend to lose your hold on the others.  I salvaged the lesson as fast as I could and finished up.  It had been kind of a hectic lesson and I walked away with a sigh.

But I also walked away with a smile.  Because something else happened that day besides the pencil crisis.

When I walked into one of the classes that day I was greeted with “Hey, you’re back!  I’m so glad to see you!” and one little girl ran up to me and excitedly listed off what she got for Christmas.  And in the midst of my pencil crisis, while I was standing there thinking “This is not going well…”  one girl said to me “I wish you could come everyday!” while the new kid in the class said “Yeah, I like you.”

Oh, kids.  They’re the greatest.

Elizabeth L. is a long-term volunteer in CAP's Child and Family Development program. She lives in McCreary Volunteer Community.