Standing near the front of his sixth-grade biology class, the revered teacher listened attentively to his student's response from the back. Her reply was punctuated by another in a series of noisy click-click-click from the middle row of seats. The relaxed master directed a follow-up remediation to the same girl in the back. As she responded with two or three sentences, he moved quickly to the source of the clicks and deftly grabbed - and pocketed - the offending trinket. "Excellent!" he remarked: her reply was right on target.

The teacher floated another high-order question to the next student, and his lesson plan proceeded without a hitch. His quick, surgical strike had completely averted a potentially costly disruption by the trinket and its owner to the class's precious allocated learning time.

A half-hour earlier, the noisy clicking had debuted in his class. The teacher quickly halted his session-opening lecture: "John, stop playing with that. I shouldn't have to tell you a second time." This initial directive consumed a mere second or two and hit its mark. The boy had stopped immediate­ly, his face adopting a momentary crimson shade.

As an observer in this renowned teacher's class, I couldn't help but notice the boy and his toy. It was evident to me in my observing role that the boy was bent on de­mon­strating for the popular, pretty girl seated next to him that he knew this stuff cold, and he was cool enough to manage visibly multitasking the lecture and his trinket. So, disobeying the earli­er clear indication from his teacher, towards the end of the period, the sixth-grade boy could not resist tinkering again. Perhaps it's not everyday he sits next to this popular girl.

And thus the swift, precise confiscation ensued. In a case of classic overlapping, the teacher had al­most imperceptibly manifested his skill in the subtle science of leading his class. "Wow," I thought to my­self as a teacher wannabe, "The consummate professional, he sure made that look easy, if anyone even noticed it at all. He knows a whole lot more science than bio...."

Witt Farquhar, American University