I am entirely convinced that my daily life is far more entertaining than most reality TV shows these days. I am a teacher, and I promise you that if a camera followed me around all day, producers would have countless hours of entertainment. I teach a first-grade integrated classroom, and when you get 24 six- and seven-year-olds together in a classroom, things get interesting in a hurry!

There are numerous stories I could drone on and on about, but one of my very favorite stories occurred in my classroom last year. To give you a bit of insight about the situation, almost everything I have ever typed throughout high school, college, and my teaching career has been in the same font. I am a creature of habit. I pick what I like and stick to it.

On this particular day, however, I was administering a small-group test made by a coworker of mine who selected a different font for the assessment. I handed the papers to each of the three students working with me, and I was immediately met with questions and a slight sense of panic as soon as one particular student noticed that the font used was ‘Arial’ rather than my standard ‘Century Gothic.’ He began to rattle on about how I do not like to use ‘Arial’ on my papers but that my coworker must like ‘Arial’ the best because it is what she used to type out the test. Upon hearing this, the little girl sitting next to him turns to the girl next to her and said, “Yeah, I don’t really like the old Disney princesses much either.”

For what seemed like the next hour but was probably less than a minute, the two girls continued to gab about their favorite Disney princesses, while my font-loving boy rambled on about his favorite fonts. As I’m sure you can imagine, I could hardly keep a straight face. It wasn’t until the girls wrapped up their princess conversation that they paused to actually listen to what their friend was saying. After a moment of listening with the most puzzled look on her face, one of the girls finally turned to me and said, “Wait, what is he talking about?!? I’m really confused! I thought he was talking about Ariel, the Disney princess!” Cue laughter from their teacher followed by a conversation explaining computer fonts not Disney princesses.

Oh where were the cameras during that small group lesson?

(Chelsea Jewell is a first grade teacher at Collegeville Elementary in Bryant, Arkansas.)