They sat at their desks, some of them socially distanced some not, because we have more in-person students than two-person desks. So some sat shoulder to shoulder. Others of course, were sitting at desks at home, or kitchen tables, or on beds in their rooms … on Zoom.
I handed out the bubble sheets and the final exam for those in the room. I clicked on the button to activate the online test for the Zoom kids. The room went quiet. Zoom was quiet, but then it always is.
The Oreos made a racket. Two for each of them in the room. None for those on Zoom. Who knows if the Zoom kids knew what was going on when I put on a latex glove and started handing out the cookies. Surely some were on to me, because the camera was on, and I was making a racket.
“Thank you,” every last one of them said, most of them with their noses buried in the exam.
There was plenty of time. Fewer than 20 questions for a 2-hour test. Plenty of time. And when the time was almost over, I handed out a hand-drawn (but photo-copied — 180 kids, right?), hand-colored card to each of them sitting at the desks and posted a digital version to those of them on Zoom.
Some kids seemed to think the card was a cookie coaster, putting one Oreo on the black 2020 Covid circle and the other on the 2021 circle of light.
Bad cookie/good cookie. On balance, not a bad way of looking at things.