Everything In Its Place

I am afraid that I need to start a remedial chair-straightening class.

Earlier in the school year, I lamented how my end-of-the-day class has not grasped the bare basics of chair-straightening. How last year's group was on the road to the Guinness World Record in chair-straightening. They were truly chair-straighteners extraordinaire. Crisp rows of desks and chairs, precisely positioned, as if they had been aligned with the aid of a surveyor's transit and laser range finder. So exact that a Swiss watchmaker would be envious of their accuracy.

But this year's group...bless their detail-challenged little hearts. Their chair-straightening technique brings to mind the machinations of one of Dr. Witt's heavily-caffeinated spiders. A Picasso rather than a Rembrandt. Nursery-school recess instead of Tai Chi.

I can only surmise that they are right-brainers. That each wants his chair to be unique. That he feels as one with the chair. And the chair does not like constraints placed upon it. That each chair should be a veritable snowflake, unparallelled by any other chair.

Yikes! Maybe I am stifling my students.