It is like a classroom blew up in my face

posted by jakevest on 12th, 2009

If you think it has been awhile since I blogged, you should see my front yard. I’m a regular computer regular next to keeping up with chores, decorating for Christmas and babysitting foliage that doesn’t belong in this climate.

I’ve been too busy to even write and say how busy I am.

Now I know a little bit about how the boys feel over in Iraq with those IED’s all over the place. Somewhere back about the middle of October, I picked up a pumpkin and a classroom blew up in my face. First it was the Halloween celebration, hallway decoration, illustrated story about how the teacher is taught a lesson, which segued almost seamlessly into redecorating the hallway with giant Kindness Kids Komicks about helping a lonely girl through Thanksgiving and creating 21 little Pilgrims for the wall, and then there was the endless testing to see if we got anywhere in the short amount of time we actually taught things since the last round of endless testing…and of course remediation and individualized instruction and progress reports and report cards and two class plays, complete with scenery and a teacher who went missing and a kid who transferred with no notice and took all her books with her and paperwork like you wouldn’t believe and a field trip to St. Augustine and decorating for Christmas and the holiday concert….

But that is not what has kept me away from the keyboard.

Among my many new responsibilities, in addition to being lunchtime banker, perpetual fund-raiser, surrogate next of kin, role model, keeper of records, filler of forms and assumed-to-be responsible citizen who is held to a higher ethical standard than the average person, I now find myself being a judge.

We have a custody case to be decided. In my fragile hands lies the fate of Sluggo.

Sluggo is a snail.

To us, that is a matter of little importance. To at least two fourth-graders, this slimy little living motor home is not much less than all the world and everything that is contained within. Or, so it would seem.

One child found Sluggo, prior to it being named, and brought it to class. It was one of maybe 6,000 creatures carried in proudly, or sneaked in, or who just hitch-hiked to the room, lost in the general road grime, muddiness and disarray that children can get into between breakfast and the first bell. One day we had 12 snails. The next day we had none and not a tear was shed.

But once Sluggo was named Sluggo, the story changed. The finder turned it over to another student, a bubbly, effervescent, cheerleader-to-be, who likes to dance while she is answering questions and can make balloon animals and draw cartoons. In other words, a Renaissance Woman of 10.

We’ll call her Rah-Rah. For lack of another word and because names are good for identifying people, we will call the student who found the snail Peppermint. It is sort of appropriate, although on some days Pickles or Vinegar Gertie might be more apt.

Anyhow, Peppermint and Rah-Rah were having one of those BFFL, best friends for life, moments, a short period of intense friendship, pledges of fidelity and exchanges of personal possessions. They rarely last from one math quiz to the next and usually don’t make it past lunch break. This one went a day or two and was consummated with the gift of the snail.

That should have been it. With the average child, that snail wouldn’t have lasted any longer than the average lifetime friendship and we would’ve been done with this mess. But, NOOOOO. It had to go to Rah Rah, who, being the overachieving child of all interests that she is, built it a habitat, complete with leaves, a water dish, dirt and assorted snail groceries.

This she brought to school which made her the center of intense attention from 19 of her 20 classmates. Guess who wasn’t very interested? You got it. Peppermint having a Pickle day.

Peppermint, by the way, is brilliant and very nearly as effervescent as Rah Rah, just not bent in the cheerleader direction. She’ll no doubt be either a litigator, a senator or my supervisor some day. She just watched the proceedings from across the room, generally kept her own counsel and when I finally got class called to something like order, muttered to a classmate “that’s MY snail, you know.”

I saw a bad mood rising.

Still, this all could have blown over with typical fourth-grade classroom angst, notes passed, exchanges of “if you don’t like me then I don’t like you twice as much” and perhaps a request or two for desks to be moved, before it was all forgotten. But, once again, NOOOOOOO.

Sluggo, it seems, was not a Sluggo at all, but a Nancy. (That’s a reference to an old comic strip, Nancy and Sluggo, don’t read anything else into it.) Or maybe with snails it doesn’t matter…whatever, either he or she was “with child” and gave birth.

That made Sluggo at least as valuable as a bag of Jolly Ranchers and a week of duty as line leader AND door holder. He/she became a prestige possession, but still not something I would lose sleep over. It would settle itself if it stopped here…but NOOOOOOOOOOO.

Sluggo ate one of its own babies.

By this single act, he/she became a thing of fourth-grade legend, the holy grail of slimy little otherwise worthless things that have been crawling around all over the place but now must be had. Never mind that this might not have happened, nobody saw it, and it is even unlikely. The little snail was there, then it wasn’t and this was a good story, so it is now the truth. Kids will believe anything…I have even convinced a few of them that math can be useful in life, a fact that I can back up with no evidence.

It was at this height of popularity that Peppermint announced…”I want my snail back.”

To this, Rah Rah exclaimed “you gave it to me…I took care of it…” and the final, final, double-dog dare of ultimate statements for a 10-year-old…”THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Lord help me, instead of quashing the whole matter with a vocabulary test or intimidating the room into sullen silence with decimals and fractions, I stupidly suggested that maybe we ought to have a trial. And since that utterance, I have not had a moment of peace.

Both sides have retained counsel….the question of the day being “how many lawyers can I have?” Nobody wants to be on the jury because jurors have to listen and it is too much like schoolwork. Most of them can’t tell the difference between a trial and an election. Everybody is lobbying everybody else to get votes for the outcome they prefer. Snail time is being exchanged for support…Jolly Ranchers are changing hands. It is looking like it might degrade into a popularity contest with the decision going to the person with the most resources and not even a cursory nod to the justice of the matter.

Just like it happens in real life.

That would probably be a valuable lesson, considering that, if the statistics hold true, two or three of these kids will get to experience a real trial fairly soon. But it is counterproductive. If they figure out how it really works when it really gets down to it and something matters, how will I ever keep them interested when we start studying how it is supposed to work?

Besides, if they figure this out, it might open the door to deeper dungeons and darker places.

Politics.

I’m not sure I want that on my conscience. I think it would be easier to live with the knowledge that I am a snail assassin. Me and Sluggo might have to have a dinner party, just for two.

Escargot, anyone?