Tales From The Classroom

("Tales from the Classroom" is a feature posted occasionally here at this blog.  All tales are true and present matters about which I have personal knowledge.  The following tale relates the story of something that happened when I was teaching sixth grade in 1993.  If you must have politics, please scroll down; yesterday, I posted about the recent shootings at Columbia Mall in Maryland)

David, the director's favorite grandson, was a brilliant student.  He wasn't a troublemaker and, therefore, often had his assigned seat in the final row of desks.

David did have one bad habit, however: when he was concentrating on something, he liked to sit on his knees while in his student desk.  He had received many warnings about the precariousness of such posture, but often continued sitting on his knees.

One day, his bad habit was forever reformed.

Sitting on his knees as usual, he leaned to one side so as to see the board more clearly. Over the desk went — with David in it!

Like something out of James Thurber's short story "The Night the Bed Fell," David landed on his spilled and open three-ring binder. The rings opened up, then snapped shut. In the process, David's right ear lobe was caught and pierced.  David's screams could be heard all over the building.  I had to rush over to him and release the notebook dangling from his ear.

I was worried that David's grandmother would somehow be angry with me, but she wasn't.  Her comment: "He's been warned many times.  He got what he deserved."

He had to wear a bandaid on his ear for weeks until the ear lobe healed.  And he never sat improperly in his desk again.

So, what kind of adult did David turn out to be?  Well, when he grew up, he served as a Christian missionary in the Sudan.