They're different from us, which means they can't be trusted

It's no big secret that I'm not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination. As my sister Heather would say, I have "harsh brown thumbs of death."

Apparently my students haven't caught on to that yet. But this may not be entirely my fault.

You see, a few weeks before Christmas, one of my students gifted me an amaryllis bulb, which came with a pot and some potting soil. I washed my hands of planting the thing by "allowing" some students to do it for me. Similarly, I "allowed" my students to take turns watering it each day.

It started growing pretty quickly, much to the delight of all. And when Christmas break rolled around, I oh-so-generously permitted the girl who gave me the plant to take it home and care for it during the vacation.

After the break, it finally started to bloom -- the pinnacle event we all were waiting for.

And then our school had new carpet installed. And, well, the amaryllis met a tragic demise in the process of moving furniture out of the classroom -- you could say it made fast friends with the floor. The stalks broken, the flowers wilted, the plant never made a true recovery. It kept getting more and more sickly until I finally threw it away a week or so ago. Plus it was attracting bugs, so the dude needed to go.

Then, for Valentine's Day, a different student gave me three potted tulips. I watered it faithfully for the two whole days before the three-day weekend, hoping that it wouldn't shrivel up and die in the meantime. Well, when I came to school this morning, it definitely didn't look super healthy. But maybe it could make a comeback with a little extra water and TLC.

And then one of my students fell onto my desk (?) and crushed two of the three flowers. We'll see how long I keep this one around before introducing it so the circular file.

Apparently we can't have nice things in our room.

But the children love the books!

So, the school year is more than halfway over. Hallelujah. I won't lie: it has been much harder than I thought it was going to be. The management has been the most difficult, as close to a third of my students can be considered "challenging." The other two-thirds of the class are delightful, but I feel like they're getting the shaft as far as education goes, since I've had to spend so much time on management. And grading failed math tests time after time really does wonders for my confidence.

We had a three day weekend, and I can't say I'm exactly chomping at the bit to go back to work tomorrow. So in an effort to remind myself of the good parts of teaching, allow me to share some of these tidbits:

-Each class has 45 minutes a week to spend in the computer lab. I usually have the students spend at least the first 20 minutes practicing their keyboarding skills. With the program our school uses, students need to type each exercise with 100% accuracy at 20 words per minute or faster before they can move on to the next one. Their speed is indicated by "'number' wpm." I'm not so sure my students know what wpm stands for, because at least three of my boys refer to it as "whomps." As in, "Whoa, I got 25 whomps!" As "whomps" is a word my siblings and I used to use quite frequently, back in the days when we watched Recess on Saturday morning cartoons, who am I to discourage its usage?

-A couple weeks ago I may have lectured my class on respect (a recurring theme, it seems), because they were being so rowdy and kept talking while I was teaching or when other students were contributing to the discussion. The next morning a cupcake mysteriously appeared on my desk, and no one fessed up to putting it there. Also, at recess a girl whipped out some yellow roses from her backpack and gave them to me. It was pretty adorable.

-Students can buy erasers and mechanical pencils and the like out of little vending machines at the front of the school. One girl spent over $30 on these items and promptly bestowed about ten pencils and pens upon me. What an honor!

-A girl related the following to me one day: "Yesterday I was happy because we got a new Yorkie! But today I'm sad because I forgot what he looks like."

-Another student told me "I want to be a teacher when I grow up, because you get all the good stuff at Valentine's Day and Christmas." Yes, be envious of the flowers and giant Hershey kisses and stuffed animals. A teacher needs to have some perks!

-We had pajama day on Friday. My students were pretty impressed with my Eeyore slippers. They may be close to a decade old and be reinforced with duct tape on the soles, but they're still going strong!

Okay, I'm feeling better about going to work again. Success!

"Don't worry, I have the immune system of a horse."

In preparation for the math benchmark test I'll be giving my students on Thursday, I'm writing a bunch of practice word problems for my class to solve together tomorrow. And let's be honest, the situations are starting to get a little ridiculous.

For example, in one problem Bon Qui Qui* collected 7,346 stamps, which she wants to divide equally among 7 binders.

1. Who collects that many stamps?

2. Who would even care about dividing them equally? If I had that many stamps, I would think "Let's just cram them all in the binders and hope I don't lose too many in the process."

In another problem, Shaniqua* has 532 rocks in her collection, and her sister Natasha* has 214 rocks. They combine their collections together. If they put 9 rocks each into a container, how many containers will they need for all of their rocks?

A. What parent would allow their children to collect over 700 rocks and keep them in their house without going insane?

B. What would the total cost of damages be after all these rocks get vacuumed/run through the washing machine/stepped on, requiring emergency care?

Better stamps and rocks than candy bars, right?


ETA: I just wrote a question that goes like this: Lakisha* had a jump rope that was 17 feet long. In a terrible accident, the jump rope was cut into 4-foot pieces. Draw a picture or diagram that illustrates the situation. . . . (etc.)

Is this just asking for trouble?

*Names have been changed, as I'm using student names in the problems and I don't want to somehow violate any privacy laws.