Slice of Life: Clockstoppers and Timetellers

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge for March, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We are writing each day about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

sol16Friday mornings, we do our fluoride in the classroom. About half the kid grab their cups of stuff (the other half don’t participate) and, at this point in the year, I tell them to time themselves for a minute. They stare at the clock on the wall, in a sort of trance, watching the second hand tick the seconds away.

Interestingly, it is one of the few times they make note of the analog clock in the room.

In almost every other occasion other than fluoride time, when they have to pay attention to the minute mark, they squint at my active board for the small digital clock in the upper corner. Sometimes, they don’t notice that I have the board on “freeze” mode (so the screen stays frozen and I can work on my computer) and they become lost in time. I had one student yesterday, signing out for the bathroom, who kept looking back and forth from the screen to the wall clock, trying to figure out why they were not in sync.


flickr photo shared by Bennett 4 Senate under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license

On some mornings, like yesterday, right around 9 a.m., our wall clock sometimes … stops. Just pauses. Takes a break. It’s the building clock system adjusting to “real time,” I guess, but when it happens — when the hands of time come to a complete and full stop — all the swishing-spitting kids’ eyes bulge out, as if they can’t believe it. As if it hasn’t happen many Fridays before. They point with dramatic fingers at the clock, and try to get my attention. As if I can fix it.


flickr photo shared by bibendum84 under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license

I nod, as if knowingly, and say, “Well, I guess your teeth get a little extra protection this morning,” to which their reply is as predictable as mine: a shake of theirs head in a dramatic “nooooooooo” shake and then relief when the clock starts up again.

The more attuned kids have realized by now that the second wall clock in the room — the one I brought in from home, with a saxophone on it — may be “off time” a bit from the world of Time, give or take five minutes, but it never stops working. Therefore, it’s a much better device for fluoride. I think the other just like the idea of watching time stand still.

Peace (in the seconds),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. A stitch in time saves 9…it’s about time…does anybody really know what time it is? Time is on your side and I loved reading about your students’ view of time!

  2. This was a great example of how to take a moment and expand it by writing about it. It was fun to imagine your students and enjoy your side commentary simultaneously. Thanks for sharing!

  3. An interesting take on time. Time is something that interests me as well as confuses me That might be why I love books or movies that deal with time travel.

  4. Great piece on time and clocks and a small moment in time! So many of our students rely on digital clocks and watches. Growing up, we had a clock in the livingroom with Roman Numerals – imagine that! I remember there were certain high school and college classes where many of us glanced at the wall clock too often. Love the splash of dialogue and the photos, too!

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