Bacon and Eggs With a Side of Socks

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash

A resourceful teacher is always looking for more efficient and practical ways of managing tasks in the classroom. One of the tools that are used almost daily in my classroom are wipe boards. When paired with a dry erase marker, they come in very handy for language arts and math lessons especially.

One challenge I always experienced, however, was we never seemed to have enough erasers to go around. Then it came to me! The solution that I had seen in another classroom was pure genius. It was the mismatch bag of socks that had no mates—or I’m sorry, let me rephrase that “Super Special Sock Erasers.”

My sister rounded up a bag of these priceless gems for me, but let’s just say some of those lonely socks were a little too special. Cue the bacon and eggs sock. The bacon and eggs sock was a colourful and crazy statement sock that put all the rest of the white and athletic socks to shame. Nothing compared to it, and the students became quickly aware of that.

For this reason, the bacon and eggs sock became the crown jewel that all students sought to possess during any time we used wipe boards. That sock was a source of stress and a true bone of contention for me on the daily.

​One day, before the kids came in, I remembered the infamous bacon and eggs sock and the conflict it brought, and I intentionally removed it from the bag and put it in my teaching bag. A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.

I couldn’t help but laugh when we needed the socks for the next lesson and the students were frantically searching for the favoured sock. One student called out, in shock and horror, “The bacon and eggs sock is missing!” Trying to act surprised, I responded, “Oh no, really? How unfortunate.”

The treasured sock was somehow “lost,” and my lessons went so much smoother. The class will never know the shocking truth of that sock’s fate—and honestly, some stories are just better left untold.