The Table Incident

The Table Incident

“What happened here?” Miss McGinnis said, from the front of the room.

Her students, second graders in Applebaum Public, all looked up in complete silence. She had to catch herself quickly to keep from smiling.

“I’m waiting,” she said. The students started fidgeting, but still not talking. Time to single someone out.

This was tricky, she knew whoever she picked would have the whole class waiting to either cheer them on, or write them off, depending on what they said. Second graders were tough. It was very tricky, but she had been teaching long enough to know what to do.

“Alright,” she said, “Trevor Willis, come to the front.”

Trevor slowly walked to the front.

“Trevor, have you been in this room for over ten minutes?” Trevor looked confused, but answered “Yes.”

“Alison Page, come to the front,” she asked Alison the same question. Then she called every other student up and asked them.

Once they were all standing in front of her, all having been in the room for over ten minutes, she said, “Someone knocked over this table, I believe it was an accident, but it did happen. Since you all have been in this room long enough to likely have seen what happened, you all probably know just how to pick this table back up and put everything back the way it was. I will be back in five minutes.” She left the room.

When she returned, everything was back to normal. She immediately walked to her desk and then told everyone to take out their math books. She never mentioned the table again. It was actually her favorite way to solve problems.

And that’s why most of the kids who went to the Applebaum Public Schools, always remember Miss McGinnis as their very favorite teacher ever.