He's Holding It Like An Ice Pick

Faced with a challenge that was frustrating me I decided to phone a friend for help. Technically I didn't phone a friend I Words With Friends a friend.  Thanks Debby your solution worked.  More on this a little later.

While I was undergoing my test of endurance to get hired fall break arrived.  At my school this is a two week break with a voluntary option in week one.  The voluntary option is that a scholar can attend school during the first week of break.  The first week is referred to as Opportunity Week.  If a scholar is an over achiever and wants additional opportunities to learn they can get that during the first week of break.  At the same time if a scholar is struggling academically Opportunity Week is available to help a scholar catch up.  During this week approximately twenty three percent of the scholars in my school system took advantage of this opportunity.  So you know that means thousands of scholars attended.  I bring this up for one reason and that is the print media.  For reasons unknown to me the print media viewed the percentage of those attending as a low number and labeled Opportunity Week a failure.  I'm sorry but thousands of scholars attended school when it was not required.  For the print media to label this week a failure is wrong.

Note - as a reminder the events that I discuss are real but all names are made up.  In the next paragraph I will introduce you to the parent liaison and her name is Jim's wife.

While waiting patiently to get hired I was given the opportunity to assist in a classroom as a
volunteer.  I was led to the classroom by Jim's wife the parent liaison and I was bit concerned when I stepped into a kindergarten room.  My preference was to work with the older scholars but Jim's wife said that the kindergarten teacher had her hands full and really needed some help.  Jim's wife introduced me to the teacher and she promptly said please work with that young scholar who was seated right in front of me.  He is a handful and if you can help him then I can focus on the other    dozen or so scholars in the room.  So I sit down right next to the scholar in a really small chair that is
not built for 5' 10" and 205 pounds and see that he is working on handwriting.  I'm thinking this  should be pretty easy until I notice the young scholar is holding his pencil like an ice pick and trying   to write.  Simple fix I'm thinking and I start helping the young scholar hold the pencil properly.  That  
was easy enough as he is properly holding the pencil which lasted about fifteen seconds and then   backing to chipping ice.  I'm good with that as he is young so I repeat the process again and again and again.  Being somewhat puzzled as to why this is so difficult I'm thinking there must be a better way to help this young scholar.  Unfortunately handwriting time ended and we are moving on to reading.     
While the teacher was reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears an idea popped into my head and so   later that day I sent a Words With Friends chat message to a good friend from Central Michigan  University who is a special education teacher.  Her response came back to me a little while later and  she said to go to the golf course and pick up a few score card pencils.  These pencils are at best fours   inches long which means they can't be held like an ice pick when writing.  The short pencil worked.    Thanks Debby.