Bold enough to correct the superintendent.

Stand and Misfire

At a Citizens Advisory Council meeting recently, Brian Benzel, the superintendent in Spokane, Wash., was trying to share a quote by author Thomas Friedman from his best-seller The World Is Flat.

"While we used to tell kids 'You should eat all your food because there are starving kids in China,' now we're saying, 'Do your homework because there are children in China doing yours,'" Benzel said, thinking he was directly quoting Friedman. But he was quickly halted by a small voice from the audience.

"I hate to correct you," a 4th grader from Audubon Elementary School announced. "But you got it kind of wrong."

The pupil proceeded to share the correct quote: "Tom, finish your dinner--people in China and India are starving. My advice to you is: Finish your homework--people in China and India are starving for your jobs."

The youngster told Benzel she knew the correct line "because my teacher had it as our quote of the day!"

Hitched at the Conference

When Larry Harnisch came to AASA's national conference in San Diego in February to be recognized as a 25-year member of the association, he had much grander plans in mind than a dose of professional development.

During the course of the conference, Harnisch, superintendent of Nebraska's Wood River schools, slipped off quietly to get married to Vickie McDonald, a state senator from Lincoln, Neb., at Coronado Island in San Diego. McDonald announced her wedding a few days later on the floor of the Nebraska legislature.

Harnisch and McDonald will need to maintain separate homes, however, because Wood River is not in her legislative district.

Playing the Press on Two Fronts

The boys' high school basketball team in Cut Bank, Mont., gets great coverage in the town's weekly newspaper.

It's not so much the team's winning record as the fact that head coach Brian Kavanagh owns the Cut Bank Pioneer Press. He and his wife, LeAnne, also own several other weeklies in north-central Montana.

"He used to write his own articles," LeAnne Kavanagh says of her husband, who has coached the team for 16 years. "Let's just say he's never misquoted."

(Source: The Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls, Mont.)

Modern Play School

Angie Flitter, a 3rd grade teacher at Gilbert Elementary School in Gilbert, S.C., remembers playing school with a chalkboard, paper and markers at her home when she was a little girl, and she even used a typewriter to create her own tests.

"Well," Flitter related to her principal, Tim Oswald, "I have a little girl in my class who loves to play school as well. I asked her if she had a chalkboard. Her reply was 'Huh? I use my dresser as the SmartBoard, and my lamp is the Elmo.'"

An Elmo is a device that projects full-color images from any source onto a screen the size of a wall.

Sexual Orientation 

The first day of 7th grade is difficult, but not only for the students. A homeroom teacher at Ralston High School in Nebraska was valiantly trying to get his students to complete the necessary paperwork for the office, the nurse, etc.

One girl raised her hand and indicated that she couldn't fill in one of the blanks. Trying to be helpful, the teacher questioned her about the item she was unable to answer.

In a loud voice, she said, "Sex. I don't know what I am. I haven't had my period yet."

(Source: Holly Nielson, guidance counselor, Ralston High School)

Before There Were Words

A 3rd-grade class at Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville, Md., was watching a videotape of "The Nutcracker" when one student asked, "Why isn't there any talking?"

Another child called out helpfully: "Because language hadn't been invented yet!"

(Source: The Bulletin, Montgomery County, Md., Public Schools)

Pursuing Personal Property

A few years ago, Robert Holster, superintendent in Passaic, N.J., had to terminate a custodian. This, of course, meant he was no longer permitted to come onto school property.

One morning, Holster received a phone call from the ex-employee asking whether he could please come into the school to retrieve his collection of Hustler magazines from his locker.

Short humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 801 N. Quincy St., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22203. Fax: [phone]. E-mail: [e-mail].