8th Graders

Its 6^th period and I am attempting with out much success to gain traction with a discussion about the starter for the day. Perhaps this was because today was the last day of spirit week and everyone is in costumes of blue anticipating the upcoming assembly. If elevated talking, distracted energy and general romping around is what spirit week is intended to do, then it has squarely hit its mark. I just wish my lessons would have similar precision. Then just as it things seemed to be calming down an eruption of laughter engulfs the entire room, sans me. I spin around, look and am at a loss; whatever was so funny wasn’t apparent to me, at least at first.

Then it became very obvious, ink. It was black and everywhere; on the floor, on my demo desk, on the white board, on the laptop computer cart, even on a struggling valentine rose. There was little spared in the front of the room from the splatter of black ink. Fortunately it took little detective work to find the culprit. All dots led to the desk of… the student holding a broken pilot pen and ink on his desk.

Little resistance was made by ‘Joe’, the evidence laid directly in his hands and his only plea was “I didn’t mean to”. Now what? Was this intentional? Or was this as much a surprise to him as it was to me and the rest of the class? What would you do?