After day one of testing, one of my students' appendix explodes. Another student severely sprains his wrist while playing goalie in soccer, and yes, it's his writing hand. We fall victim to faulty directions, slow test materials collection, and a shortage of flimsy plastic rulers.
Worst of all, we discover that our favorite brand-name pencils are not as great as they used to be. They're tough to sharpen, the graphite keeps falling out (like cheap mechanical pencils, only they're regular pencils), and the end caps keep popping off, erasers and all. This last event sets off the science teacher, and he sends us all an email bemoaning the pencils' ferrules.
A ferrule is a metal band, and a pencil's ferrule is capped with a rubber eraser. Most of us, though, just call that end of the pencil the end cap or, more directly, the eraser. But the science teacher is known for his exactness and also for turning a phrase. I'm not going to lie: I look up the definition of ferrule because I'm not certain that's what it is called. I don't know why I question my coworker, though; of course, he is correct.
Mass mutiny or not, though, I am anxious for testing to end so our team meetings can resume. I'm dying to ask my teammate how he pulled the word "ferrule" out of his arsenal.
