Monday Miscellany

From my four year old boy last night:
"How is a banana like the moon?"
"I don't know, how is a banana like the moon?"
"It's a school bus."

He has also been trying out knock-knock jokes. The main problem is that he doesn't know any punch lines so they go like this:
"Knock, Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Pop tart."
"Pop tart who?"
"Soup." Followed by uproarious laughing.

If you follow local Atlanta news, you may know that on Friday there was a police standoff in Alpharetta. Two local schools were on lock-down. My school was one of those. It was eerie to hear the helicopters circle without knowing what was going on. The eerieness was enhanced by the fact that the school is secluded by a dense forest. Fortunately, our high school was out for the day, but our lower school was in session.

Last week was our annual high school retreat. We went to a beautiful Young Life camp at Sharp Mountain Cove. Staying in a dorm with forty super-charged teenagers is not my idea of a good time. The advent of football at our school has led to many unintended consequences. One of which is that our boys are just as immature, but now they have the physical power of men. Over the course of one hour, we had to break up two fight-club style events and pull one boy's fist out of the wall after another student hit him with a belt. When questioned by yours truly, the student with the belt claimed to have hit the victim "delicate". Later, the assailant approched me to make sure I understood that it wasn't like the victim was kneeling down and being beaten by the assailant, instead the victim was sleeping in a top bunk, and he just kind of flipped the belt at him. That must explain why the victim was so mad that he put his fist through the wall. Got it.

On day one of my freshmen classes I introduced the term Tabula Rasa. Not a single student knew what it was until my final class of the day. One boy knew it and traced it to John Locke. After class I asked him how he knew what it was and how he had heard of John Locke. Four years of classical school. We need to do better.

Peace