Part of what I love about teaching is the endless amusement that students provide, deliberately or inadvertently.
School rules required a shirt with a collar. Robert showed up in a blue sweater with a clean white dress shirt visible at the neck. He went from class to class, polite and calm--which wasn't normal. At the end of school, as he shook my hand good-bye, he pulled on the collar and, surprise!, it came out from around his neck in one long piece. He had torn the collar off a shirt and worn it--just the collar--tucked carefully into the neck of his sweater. "What do you say about that, Mr. Sagarin?" he asked. I say, Robert, thanks for entertaining me.
Back when subway cars in New York had conductors who made actual stop announcements--not the audible but impersonal pre-recorded voices of today--at least one conductor, on arriving at Times Square, would announce, "Times Square. 42nd Street. Center of the Universe," giving that location its due in the imagination of the world. I was telling this slightly amusing story to a seventh grade class, when I saw Emma's eyes grow wider and wider. "Mr. Sagarin. Is Times Square REALLY the center of the universe?" she asked. Thanks, Emma. Now I'll never forget it.
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