This is a quick story but still one of my favorites. Nate was a teacher in Social Studies. He had a weird sense of humor and if you put us both in the same room we were dangerous. Standardized State Testing is a horrible waste of time and energy but even worse for the teachers who have to sit and watch kids take the test. Watching grass grow was far more exciting. One year Nate and I were assigned to a room together. It was in Social Studies and happened to be in Merle’s room. I had never noticed but his room was perfect in every way. He had an entire wall of posters and as we looked closer, they were absolutely straight. Not a single one was even slightly askew. Knowing Merle and how his room was, we hatched a plan to see if he would notice anything out of line. We moved one poster in the middle of the wall just about 1 degree off of perfect. We finished testing and didn’t think about it until a couple of days later. He came to Nate and me and said, “I know you moved, put it back!” We tried to claim innocence but like most of our teenage subjects, we couldn’t keep a secret. The one lesson I learned is to leave another teacher’s room alone. Merle was very good-natured and wasn’t really angry but he did say he felt something was amiss when he sat down the first day after testing and looked at the wall. I have never moved another teacher’s poster since but I can’t speak for Nate.
