Group Norms

My pal, GW, wanted me to post this story to my blog so that he would never forget it. Hopefully, I will get it all right. So here goes.

GW, smart man that he is, decided that being a lawyer sucked. A lot. So he went back to school and is now working as a high school math teacher. So anyway, during the first week of school, he tells his students that they will be working in groups and that they would need to sort of set the ground rules for the groups would work. But he didn't want to call them rules. Instead, he wanted to discuss group norms. He asked for suggestions for some of the group norms. He got silence from his pack of ninth graders. Again he asked for suggestions. No one gave into her inner Hermione Granger and volunteered anything. Finally, one kid in the class started to mumble something, but GW didn't really catch it and asked the kid to speak up. The kid's question was "aren't those the things people put in their yards?"

GW laughed and then corrected the poor kid, telling him that, no, norms and gnomes are not the same thing. I he wasn't supposed to laugh, but how could he help himself?

Then someone else yelled out the obligatory "NORM" a la Cheers.

I'm not sure what happened next or if they ever set up their norms.

All I know is that I wish the gnomes would stay put in the front lawns and stop stealing the baby's socks from the dryer.