Education: Broomstick

The wretched voice of an unintelligent woman wined through a third-grade classroom in Kansas, Mo., one morning last week:

"I'll give you just 15 seconds to rell how many 4's are in 32!" It was one Mary Hickman, teacher, addressing spindle-shanked Jimmy Edwin Christman, aged nine.

"But I can't answer it, Miss Hickman."

The miserable woman's head swam. In her helplessness she brought a broomstick into the classroom, which she sat gripping in her hand like an angry witch. Quivering with impotent fury, she looked at her wrist watch.

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