How Many Freshmen Does It Take To Open a Door?

i keep my classroom door shut and locked. it keeps out noise (or keeps it in, depending on the day), and deters people from walking in and disrupting my class. the only side effect from it is that when a student uses the bathroom, someone has to get up to let them in. usually this is no big deal, but sometimes the kids are in the middle of doing something and don't want to get up.

enter a student from my fifth period class (of course). she sits nearest to the door (desks are arranged in a horseshoe shape) and always tries to lean over to the right to open the door, but she just can't reach. yesterday, she said, "you know, if i just had, like, a stick or something i could reach and no one would have to get up." this made sense, so i offered her one of the dowel rods we used as swords in romeo and juliet. unfortunately, it was not strong enough and threatened to break. "i need something thicker."

"what if we put two together? like, taped it or something?" this was from a student on the other side of the room. so we tried it. using masking tape, i bound together two dowels. she tried again. this time it was strong enough, but the dowels slid off before the door was fully opened. "rats."

"ooh, ooh!" exclaimed the student next to her, "go under the handle!" "under it? that won't work." "no, go over the handle, but under the thingie where it goes into the door."

success! this gave enough leverage so that she could open the door from her seat. through a few easy trial and errors, the kids worked out the system of pulling the door open only an inch, letting the stick be pulled back, and then opening the door fully. they really cracked me up with their teamwork to figure out how to fix it.

see? i'm all about practical applications and problem solving.