not the happy kind of hour

• He turns his papers in. Not on time, and never early. But when he’s good and ready, he is the master of ‘early entry printing’. He arrives three minutes before the bell, feigning assiduousness. He grabs a laptop, plugs in his flash drive, and is considerate enough to print on the ‘lowest quality’ setting. He never sees the blazing irony in any of this.

• He’s broke. Tough economy, scarce job market, but this student needs recreational spending money. The lesson on the Federal Reserve is over. Twelve dollars worth of one dollar bills sit on the teacher’s desk. Mrs. Teacher is collecting homework. And five days later, no one, absolutely no one admits to the crime or any awareness of it ever happening. No worries: our school is only one month in to the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. It’s almost unfair of us to expect any student to do the right thing.