"None of us are who we used to be," Nick had once said. How right was he? Are the members of the Scooby gang anything like their old selves? Were their lives any easier when they were younger? The answer is no! Take a look at personal stories from e...
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The teacher paced around the room, circling tables of students as she named off facts about the discovery and colonization of America. Most of the students were resting their elbows on the desks, and resting their chins in their hands to hold themselves up; they were doing everything in their power to keep from falling asleep.
The only student who was learning anything wasn't paying attention to the teacher. He was reading a book about history, only it was the history of clocks rather than America. The teacher noticed him.
"Am I boring you, Monroe?" the teacher asked him, looking over his shoulder to see what he was reading. Monroe turned around in his seat to look at her and said, "No, you're fine," and started reading his book again. The entire class erupted with murmurs.
"Monroe, put that away or I'll take it," the teacher warned sternly. A few of the students said, "Oooh, you're in trouble."
Monroe turned back around to look at the teacher. "But I've been paying attention," he objected.
"Only to the function of the ree-mon-toy-er," the teacher sounded out, looking at one of the words in Monroe's book.
"It's pronounced reh-mon-tua with a slight 'r' sound at the end. Remontoire is French," Monroe corrected. "But I really have been paying attention."
"Then, what was I talking about?" the teacher challenged irritatedly.
"Well, you were saying that Columbus sailed to the Americas and it was because of him that the world was discovered to be round. You were in the middle of saying that he was a hero that drastically changed the understanding the world during his time period."
"That's very good, Monroe," the teacher said, impressed more than she wanted to admit.
However, Monroe wasn't finished. "But the majority of that is actually untrue. I mean, at the time it was already a commonly accepted idea that the world was round, so Columbus didn't actually change much."
"I don't know about that, but either way, Columbus discovered the Americas," the teacher began to disapprove.
"Well, it depends on what you mean by discovered. Like, people were already living in the places that Columbus sailed to, so 'discovered,'" Monroe said, using air quotes, "Sort of discounts the importance of the civilizations that had already developed there. Not to mention that Columbus didn't actually make it to the United States. He mainly bounced around the Caribbean, slaughtering a bunch of people over gold that didn't actually exist in those areas."
"Slaughtered?" one of the students in the room asked nervously.
Monroe got that excited look on his face that always shaped his features when he was able to share knowledge with others. "Yeah, he a-."
"Monroe!" the teacher reprimanded. "Put it away," she said, gesturing to his book. She apparently didn't like being corrected. Monroe sighed and slipped his book of clocks into his backpack and kept his chin in his hands like the other bored students for the rest of the class period.
