I was reading the comedian Richard Herring’s blog entry about shatterproof rulers and it reminded me about a time when I first started teaching. One of the children was colouring in something as I wandered around the classroom, using a new set of colouring pencils, which had “Bendable” written on the side. Cool! I’ve seen rubber pens you can tie in knots, fluffy pens with feathers on the end, rubber rulers that can be coiled up to fit in pencil cases, but never bendable pencils.
“These are great pencils,” I enthused. “But how can they be bendable?” I picked one up as the child
stopped colouring with such enthusiasm and stared at me. I took the pencil into both hands and started to bend
it, although it didn’t seem to have much give. This didn’t deter me though, and I had one last attempt at
bending the pencil. It snapped. “Oh,” I said, noticing a few more faces now witnessing my vandalism. “That’s
not very bendable, is it? Ah, um, well look, now you have two lime green pencils.” The child still didn’t
say anything but carried on staring. I looked back at the pencil as I placed it on the desk. It was then I
noticed that the tin bore the legend “Blendable pencils”.
added 25/02/07
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