Bible Belt

“Do you have a charger I can use?” One of my students asked in class today. 

I’m a pick your battles kind of a teacher, always with a ready supply of pencils and paper and you name it- whatever a student needs to do the job, I think we should provide it. But after all that, and an iPad, too, when a kid consistently can't manage to bring either a charged device or the equipment she needs to charge it? Well, that's just annoying. 

Spoiler alert: I gave her a charger. 

But before I did, I also gave her some grief. "What happened this time?" I asked, a little crossly. 

"Well I was reading in bed last night," she started.

I raised my eyebrows, because that would be very unusual for this child. 

She saw my reaction and continued anyway. "I was reading," she repeated, "I was reading the Bible!"

"No you weren't!" I said.

"I was, my dad made me!" she insisted.

"But your family is Muslim," I cried.

"True," she shook her head, momentarily at a loss. "But--"

"Here's a charger," I said. "Go do your work."