Chewing and Bubble Gum

     Why don't teachers and schools allow students to chew gum? Just yesterday, my hand brushed against a chewed piece of gum that's been stuck on the bottom of a table in Mrs. Corbally's class. I think I now have the answer to this question.
     When you chew gum, you can get distracted, but if you keep chewing and focus on another task, you'll find that you'll unconsciencelly keep chewing without thinking about it. Because of this, distractions cannot be the reason why staff do not like having gum in class or even at school. I think it's because students think the teacher will yell at them if they get up to spit the gum out or they're too lazy to get up, and the gum ends up stuck beneath the tables. It's grotesque. An unwary student may reach under the desk and the gum will come in contact with the student's hand. Who wants to touch something somebody chewed for 5 minutes? Nobody (except maybe people who are hired to do gum patrol).
     As I said before, students put gum underneath tables because of laziness or because they're afraid of getting in trouble. But tables aren't the only victims of gum; gum gets stuck in the hallways, walls, and sidewalks. I went to Chipman Middle School for three years, and I haven't seen a single wall that didn't have dried-out "crusty" gum on it. On the side of the school is a separate entrance into the Cafeteria which we use as for many purposes. Every sqaure foot of the sidewalk of the side entrance is plastered with gum. Imagine walking there with new shoes.
     Teachers despise gum because it ends up everywhere. They don't enjoy seeing a brightly colored circle smeared in awkward places, so they ban students from chewing gum (We do it anyway. Feel our power!). In my opinion, students should be aloud to chew gum, except we should be given specific instructions to spit it out. This will encourage more student to not smear gum everywhere and bad habits can be avoided.