Toy Store Balloon

Here’s an excerpt from the book The Secrets of Mariko, a book about Japanese culture that I’m reading for a class. The chapter is about Japanese schools and the breakneck pace that even elementary students are expected to maintain, “It is a tight regime that does not encourage personal dreams, experimentation, individual variety, or idealism.” Here the writer describes a scene in an elementary school that gave me an awwwww moment:

Moving quickly, she read the rest of the story to the class herself…Sensei was not wasting a minute, and now she called individual students to the front blackboard to write kanji they had learned in the story. Soon a girl was chalking out the kanji for the word “designate,” written with seventeen strokes. …Arithmetic was next. Problem: 215 people have to blow up 2,580 balloons. How many balloons for each?
      “I saw a great balloon at the toy store,” a boy offered from the back of the class. Sensei ignored him, not breaking her pace.