Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Chalk butt

Sometimes I turn around from writing on the board and people on the right side of my class are laughing amongst themselves. This is when I am teaching.

For the past year I've attributed this to my own (substantial) paranoia, until about an hour ago when after my lecture a student tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You have chalk on your butt."

I waited until most of my students were gone, then I craned my neck around and had a look at my butt. It had a big white line across one cheek. This line could only be from me sitting on the chalk ledge--the part of the blackboard where you store chalk.

At that moment, gazing at my own butt, I realized: I sometimes "rest" on the chalk ledge when I'm teaching. I hadn't consciously considered this before--it's just something I do without thinking while I teach. I feel tired, so I perch or lean on whatever is handy.

But when I perch on the chalk ledge: white line across butt.

5 comments:

Tom said...

you are like a real professor now! absentminded and oblivious. your students probably wonder how you were ever able to survive in the world.

Your stock is rising!

your small american said...

Nice!

Could-be-a-model said...

I'm with Tom. You've not only crossed the Rubicon, but I feel like you've entered Rome.

Kid Showbusiness said...

And yet, it feels like we're settling for too little in the progress department. This somehow doesn't feel like a win.

Could-be-a-model said...

KS, of course you would not see this as a win. You're like a black hole of positivity.