Kauwgom

To chew or not to chew… When being caught for about the 7th or 8th time chewing gum in class, the teacher asked me to write a little essay about chewing gum. I didn’t want to make this a boring paper with the history of chewing gum described in it, or how it was made. That is not really interesting. Instead, I thought about how chewing gum is a part of our society and we are not longer able to think of a world without it. Let’s see… It’s nice to chew on something: a straw, a pencil or a ballpoint. You put your teeth into something, your jaws move and yet you’re not eating. Even better than chewing on your pen, is chewing gum. You get a fresh taste in your mouth (extremely handy when you’ve just eaten something and you have a bad breath…), and it heightens your concentration. Also, when you’re very stressed out, it can be a relief to chew on something and you relax (during a test for example…) There are even more advantages to chewing gum. If you chew some when you’re in a plane, it prevents your ears from popping. If you use some with xylitol, it’s good to keep your teeth healthy. Yes, healthy. Because no matter what people say, this particular gum does not harm your teeth. The xylitol prevents the sugar in the gum from making holes in them. It is relatively cheap because you can do long with one, and it’s for sale everywhere: from the supermarket to the gas station around the corner, in every colour, size and taste. Of course there are also sides to chewing gum that are less positive. Count the number of times you’ve stepped with your foot on chewing gum sticking to the ground, and eventually ending on your shoe for the rest of the day. There’s no beginning at counting the number of gums sticking on streets, benches, trees, terraces, and bridges… Even in school, under tables, chairs… Almost everyone has had some chewing gum sticking on his or her clothes at least once in his or her life. Try to get this sticky thing out of your pants when you sit on it in the movie theatre. And how disgusting is it to try and remove something that has been in someone else’s mouth for hours… For teachers, teaching classes with students chewing gum must be highly annoying and irritating. Watching those jaws move up and down over and over, like watching cows chewing grass. Especially when a particular teachers has already asked a particular student about a hundred times not to chew in class, it can appear really disrespectful when that student still keeps on chewing during classes. On a more personal note I’d like to say that this student not necessarily had the intentions of being disrespectful, and was just stressed for a test. Chewing gum can be really addictive, and the more and the longer you chew it, the less you notice you’re doing it. But this student will however pay attention to it next time she’ll walk into one of the classes given by that teacher.