The Joy and Woe of the Perfect Point Pencil Sharpener

To say I've been busy is an understatement.  Tomorrow starts the second full week of school, and I am finally just now sitting down to plan it out.  Yikes!  I guess this is normal practice for many teachers, but I much prefer being one week ahead.  But in case you haven't noticed, I'm not planning right this second.  I just had to blog something quick.

After reading Sarah Hagan's post about the world's greatest pencil sharpener, and then hearing about it from countless other blogs, I decided to use the discount code Sarah offered, and try it out.  I was an immediate fan.  (Who doesn't love free two-day shipping??)  I'm not going to convert back from mechanical pencils, but this pencil sharpener makes using regular pencils bearable.

So on the first day of school, I enthusiastically introduced and demonstrated my perfect point pencil sharpener.  I successfully convinced my new students that I was crazy in less than five minutes of meeting me.  Mission accomplished.  They complained about having a super complicated pencil sharpener.  Every day.  Then something happened.

The pencil sharpener broke Friday morning.  It didn't really break.  It was clogged, and I was the one that clogged it.  (It doesn't seem to like colored pencils as much as regular pencils.)  So I removed the pencil sharpener so I could take it home over the weekend and unclog it (because I don't keep tools in school, silly me. - Some days I feel like I should, but I'm sure that could be viewed as a safety issue.)  I replaced the pencil sharpener with the old electric one I have.  (The one that kids always swear is broken, but when I try it for them it works.  It's like magic.  Or like they're not doing it right and instead of trying to hold the pencil a different way, they just assume it's broken.)  Then something funny happened.

The kids were devastated.  They wanted the special pencil sharpener back.  The pencil sharpener that they complained about is actually their favorite thing ever.  Luckily my co-teacher was able to get the sharpener unclogged at the end of the day.  However, I am now writing this post to tell this story because I've been compelled to buy a second pencil sharpener.  Just in case.  Because when that awesome pencil sharpener isn't there, the kids are legitimately disappointed, and I just can't have that.

(While proofreading this post, I realize how sarcastic it sounds.  I don't mean for it to be, that's just me.)