The kids in my third grade class were bastions of worldly knowledge. They knew how to break a pencil without the teacher knowing/seeing/hearing, how to disassemble a mechanical pencil, and they knew that not all pens click. Some have caps!
My sweet little second-graders, however, are not quite as savvy as my third-graders were.
"You broke your pen, Mr. Haworth," one of my girls said to me last Wednesday.
"No," I responded. "It's just a cap. See?"
I took the cap off and snapped it back on to show her. She gave it a skeptical look and I opened and snapped it shut a second time.
"It's weird," she said.
"No. It's a Waterman," I joked.
"It's a whaa?"
"A Waterman," I said and held it closer for her to see.
"What's a Waterman?"
"A fancy pen. An expensive pen."
"Does it cost a lot?
"This one was about a hundred bucks."
"Say whaaa?!"
My second-grader looked me in the eye and scrunched one eye at me. It was a bewildered, serious look with just a hint of incredulity to it. Her look said 'man, somebody ripped you off if you actually paid money for a pen!'
"Ummm... Okay, Mr. Haworth."
She just turned and walked away from me.
