This [via @briankott] made me smile.
“Chewing gum can and does help you focus and concentrate, not to mention relieve your boredom and tension. Hell, the military uses it to keep the soldiers sharp. It can also improve your memory for as much as 35 percent.“
Especially given this (not uncommon) view
It’s repulsive stuff, chewing gum. It performs no useful function other than allowing kids to believe themselves mini-versions of James Dean, ‘rebels without an idea of how to mark off a subordinate clause’. It gets everywhere – into carpets, onto your best teaching trousers, and often into Hermione, the Pre-Raphaelite kid’s, hair.
Upturn any school desk and you’ll find a ‘tribble’ of them nestling like guilty, germridden, rock-hard glob-bogeys, festering and sneering at your utter impotence and inability to stop more of their cousins joining them next lesson. There are few things in British schools that bring out this teacher’s inner fascist quicker than the wanton cud-chewer.