I try to ration the looks I give my class. Once in the beginning when I ask if there are any questions, once in the middle when I ask if there are any questions, and once at the end when I ask if there are any questions. The rest of the time, I’m actually talking to one of the side walls while I’m writing.
In one corner is a fancy mechanical calculator that I never really learned to use with a lot of skill; I’ve always preferred slide rules. One summer, I’ll have to give the device some close study.
In the other corner are a flag and a copy of the Constitution. Due to a recently enacted law, every classroom must have a flag and a copy of the Constitution in it. At first I didn’t see the point to it. It’d be fine in a civics class, or a history class. But in a course on calculation, fluxions and theory it seemed out of place. To this day, I’m still certain that someone got a big payday from all of this…a flag salesman, perhaps.
I turned to face the class, as I noticed after my last glance at the clocks above the important document and almost hidden behind the flag that their time with me had almost passed. “Are there any questions?”
“Do we get a cheat sheet for the exam,” a certain fox in the front row asked. “This is a lot of stuff to remember. I mean, the focus of this course is on what we can do—should we be bogged down by trying to memorize what ‘Exact’ and ‘Homogeneous’ mean?”
It was fortunate that the glasses block my eyes, but I wished I was wearing my whole hood that day. It makes it easier to get away with making the crooked sneer that goes so well with my hidden glare. “Of course you have to memorize it,” I said.
“I really don’t think it’s fair,” the fox said. He sniffed.
“It might not be fair,” I sighed as I stood near the flag, the clocks, and the Constitution. I paused, briefly studying the important document. “But it IS constitutional.”