The dust of another whirlwind day glinted in the sun in front of me. Staring across the afternoon light, I let my eyes lose focus, turning the dust and brightness into a sparkling blur, then regaining focus. This particle-laden slice of sunlight felt like my brain, thoughts fragmented and floating. Not one making any coherent impression. I could not grasp one and hold it in my hand for reflection. The area of my mind for reflection had long since closed up shop since summer.
The day had been particularly exhausting. I needed to take action, tidy up, gather papers, prepare, prepare, prepare. Yet my muddled lassitude held me anchored to the child-sized chair where I slumped. The connectors between thought and movement were currently down. So I sat.
Like a camera lens, my eyes zoomed in on the pencil cups perched on top of the bookshelf in the sun. The red cup, used for the sharp pencils, was empty (again). The blue, "sad" cup was full of dull, blunted, maimed pencils abandoned by their owners. Like a considerable fog lifting, I could almost feel shards of intelligent thought coalesce. Mental mercury converging to formulate a train of thought. It felt foreign, in a way, but welcomed. Missed even, like a long-lost friend.
Pencils. One of the myriad of minor irritations of working day-in and day-out in an elementary classroom. I have had my share of pencil 'episodes' over the course of my years. I've found myself awake at night, staring into the darkness, trying to solve the pencil dilemma. I've bought fat pencils for my students, thinking the need for sharpening would be less. You should hear how THOSE sound when 22 of them take turns rolling off of desks each day. I looked into triangular fat pencils (no rolling, no need for incessant sharpening) but they would have required me to take out a loan to keep them stocked. In an upper elementary classroom, we tried mechanical pencils and the kinds that have the sharp tips already imbedded inside the pencil shaft. I think I have been through about eight electric pencil sharpeners (this is what happens when you buy them on a teacher's budget and when you actually let children use them. They tear them up in seconds flat.). I think the shortest duration on record I had a new sharpener before it met its untimely death was a week and a half. I also went through my share of old-fashioned crank sharpeners mounted to the wall. Those also meet their demise pretty quickly at the hands of six-year-olds. These are also apparently great entertainment. I began to think that children were grinding their pencils flat under their desks just for a coveted trip to the sharpener. Whee!
So I was surprised when this year began with very little, if any, pencil issues. Each child had a cup of their own with a couple of pencils and crayons and supplies. I rounded up the tubs full of cups roughly once a week, ran those things through the sharpener and wah la! Pencils! Miraculously sharpened pencils appeared in their cups without notice or appreciation. For me, the lack of pencil lament was thanks enough.
Why were the pencils, "all of a sudden" SUCH a big deal again? It went from barely a mention of 'bum' pencils to half a dozen (whine voice inserted here) "Myyyyyy peeeeeeeencccccillll's brooookkkeeeeen", or "Mrs. ______, Mrs. ______, Mrs.______, Mrs. _________ (in the middle of math)...look at my pencil" on a daily basis. What gives? I thought I had finally broken the "pencil curse" that had pervaded my classroom each year.
Ah ha. Clarity broke through like the sunshine now beaming down on those pencil cups. Human nature. Chasing the ever-elusive "bigger, better, faster". I was getting a lesson in Human Behavior 101 and I didn't even know I'd signed up for the class. At the beginning of the year, I did not have a "pencil option" available to the class. I hadn't really needed one, and the few, random pencil incidents were usually solved quickly by giving the child a spare pencil I had on hand and we would move on without missing a beat.
Not long after the first nine weeks, I decided that I would provide a cup full of sharpened pencils on the shelf and a blue cup for "sad" ('blue' - always working on vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary) pencils that lost their points. I explained to the class that they could, when needed, "trade" a pencil when they needed to do so without asking me. My intent was to eliminate ANY pencil requests and give them an opportunity to "problem-solve" on their own.
I was now fully aware that this plan had backfired - no imploded. Not only did it NOT eliminate their need to still tell me about their crippled pencil but all of a sudden pencils were spontaneously splintering left and right. Suspiciously FLAT points. Pencils being dropped into the "sad" cup when they had merely lost their stiletto point. When we were going sometimes a week and a half without my need for sharpening pencils, now they were emptying the "new" cup daily. I started to notice 'hoarding' tendencies and covetous behaviors. Suddenly everyone was vying for the sharpest, tallest pencil, with the plumpest eraser in the cup. They were going to all lengths in pursuit of their "prize", even to the point of destruction of perfectly good pencils. And my pencil "headache" had returned with a vengeance.
In looking at my attempt to offer 'choice' in solving problems,I have always questioned the whole "give children choices" theory of child-rearing. The idea that this built little Johnny's self-esteem didn't hold much water with me. I could not offer an intelligent reason based on research in child psychology. I had witnessed enough whiny, unhappy, fit-pitching toddlers and children who were in the midst of being offered fourteen choices for an afternoon snack to be reason enough for me. "Do you want raisins? Do you want applesauce? How about peanut butter and crackers?" Meanwhile, the child is spiraling into a screaming, snotty mess over confusion at so many choices. I had seen it over and over. I determined not to do that with my own two, and I didn't. When it was time for something to drink, I poured up a nice, cold sippy cup of grape juice and handed it to them with a smile. It's just juice or snack, for crying out loud. The worst for me is when people will actually make six different things for dinner because junior "doesn't want" what mama's made for dinner. You want a sure-fire way to create a picky eater? Become a short-order cook to your three-year-old.
But I digress.
We do this though, don't we? When there is the slightest 'hint' of something "better" 'over there', suddenly we eye all the perceived choices and what we have and hold doesn't look so good. We can begin to easily find flaws and imperfections. Sometimes we will even go to guileful lengths to get what we THINK we want. For us grown ups, it can become so much more entangling than a sharper point or a better eraser. The advancement in technology (don't get me started...) has been the front runner for playing upon the covetous tendencies that lurk within. Just about the time you peel the wrap and packaging away from a new gadget, some franchise or company 'touts' it's latest version of what you just bought. When big screen televisions came out, consumers were taking out loans to buy the monstrosities, and then refinancing when the larger screens went on sale.
It isn't always with material possessions that this ugly side to human nature takes hold, although that is its most accepted arena. We can also find ourselves wishing for that other spouse, other job, other life. It gets personal. It gets so much more ensnaring, woven into the fabric of the lives of adults. In some ways, choices are positive, but sometimes, they seem to only breed discontent.
So the pencil cups have disappeared. The students' cups have been restocked with three (not two) sharpened pencils. The pencil debacle (so far! Knock on #2 wood!) has all but vanished as well (for these last two days, anyway.) However, my own attention to the subtle nature of how discontentment can creep in and taint my thinking about all that I have to be thankful for remains sharper than ever. I hope it stays that way.
