Today’s Prizes

Today was prize day again, for my students. Two of my classes had spent over three whole class periods racking up check marks, which are converted into tickets, and which are then tossed into my cardboard oats container.

I was going to just draw three winners, in first period, but the desire for the white cloth with yellow tie-dye (at least I guessed that that’s what the yellow was; I told a couple classes it was dog pee) was running pretty high, and so I said, “If someone buys me a cookie, I’ll draw a fourth ticket.”

Nobody up and said, “I’ll buy you a cookie,” but I went ahead and drew for the prize anyway–and there went the cloth.

Other notably hot items chosen from my selection: a plastic, three-compartment box, empty, which used to house paper clips; a cardboard box of post-it-like notes (unfortunately, I think it had one last piece of paper in it, and so the winner had to be content with the spring inside); a plastic diamond ring; a book of wise sayings (the boy had been begging for it for weeks, and finally his ticket was pulled); and a clear plastic folder that had been left in a locker at the end of last year.

The one highly desired item, or at least the item for which one boy pleaded, that was not selected was a plastic storage box for 3.5″ floppy disks. (M’s comment: “Do they even know that computer disks actually used to be floppy?”) Better luck next time, kiddo.

At lunch, though, a first period student brought me the requested cookie–and he hadn’t even been one of the winners! It was delicious.