When is a puppet not a puppet?

1/25/2006

When is a puppet not a puppet?

Apparently when it's made out of money.

Allow me to blow off some steam. This may be disjointed, and, at some point, I'll probably privatize (or delete) it, because I just don't like how I am right now.


I went to school to get the kids at noon today.

Actually I went in a little earlier. I do a little one-on-one helping in Kelly's class on Wednesday mornings, after I come back from my guitar gig at the Ladies Bible Study. (sheesh, You'd think that after being all worshippy and spiritual, I'd have handled the crap that hit the fan a bit better. Oh well. Live and learn.)

Anyways... I race into Kelly's class to do the one-on-one stuff, and it seems like Every. Single. Kid. wanted help today. Usually it's 2 or 3 out of the 17 kids. Today, it was ELEVEN!

Needless to say, I was racing to get it all done by the 12:30 bell.

Just finished the last boy when the bell rang. Go me!

I got Nate and Kelly out of there, and we went to wait for Skip. Usually, we'll get over to Skip's class, and he'll be out on the tether-ball court, or shooting hoops (while wearing his backpack. Don't know why. Quirky is his middle name, I guess). But Skip wasn't to be found.

I peeked my head into Skip's class to find an empty class.

Empty except for Skip and his teacher. He was standing in front of her desk, and I walked into the room, I caught the tail end of what she was saying...

"I'm sorry, but a talking five dollar bill is NOT a puppet."


SAY WHAT?????

I stayed quiet, because hey, I wasn't there from the beginning, and don't know what'd happened before. All I could tell was that Skip has that hunted look in his eyes. You know, the one that boys get when they're deathly afraid that they're about to break down into tears and there's no place for them to hide. The look that can break a mother's heart from fifty paces.

Yeah. That look.

The teacher continued. "I wish you'd come to speak with me sooner, but the presentations are tomorrow, and you've left things too late to change..."

Wait. A. Minute!

I couldn't let it go any farther. He had done ANYTHING but leave things to the last minute. So I stepped in.

"What seems to be the problem here, Skip?"

Skip looked at me. Speechless. I knew it was bad. He couldn't even squeak out a single sound. I looked at the teacher.

"What's wrong with his puppet, Miss Heck?"

"Well, Skip tells me that he's got a talking five dollar bill, but that's not a president. And the assignment sheet said "make a puppet of your president", so we were talking about what he might be able to do as a make-up for that..."

"Oh? What's wrong with a talking five dollar bill? I thought it was quite creative, and if you'll look AT THE SHEET THAT YOU ASSIGNED TO THE KIDS, you'll see that the ONLY thing that you've underlined AND written in ALL CAPS is this little phrase here... "be creative". I don't see how talking money is NOT creative..."

"Well, he needed to make a puppet that can talk in the first person..."

"You did know that Lincoln is on the Five Dollar Bill, right? Because that's what Skip has made here. He's got a giant five dollar bill."

"Well, he needs to have made the entire body of the president..."

"Really??? I didn't see that bit on the sheet that you sent home. Was there another sheet?"

"No, but money doesn't really talk..."

"Egads, neither does a brown paper sack with a photocopy of a president's face glued to the flap."

Honestly, at this point, *I* was nearly in tears.

"Well, the president needs to be able to HOLD something that represesnts his presidency, and unless your talking money has hands, how are you going to hold something?"

Please. Give. Me. A. Break. A paper bag with a face glued to the flap doesn't have HANDS either. I tried another tack.

"Miss Heck. I was here last year. I saw what the fifth graders made, and quite frankly, the fact that my son found a picture of a five dollar bill online, saved that image, blew it up, printed it, pasted it up into a single entity, taped it to a window, cut fabric to fit it, traced around the pertinent bits of said dollar, sewed BY MACHINE AND BY HAND that drawing into a puppet, STUFFED said puppet with foam sheets, and built it so that his hand cound fit inside it, to make the president's face move? THAT has GOT to count for something more than what was given a passing grade last year. Because if you just wanted him to glue a drawing of Abe's face to a lunch bag, I'm sure we could just do that, and be done with it."

I do believe at this point, actual steam was coming from my ears.

(And, if I might add, I think Skip had started to grin.)

"OH! He actually MADE the money? Because I thought he was just going to hold up a five dollar bill, and pretend it was talking..."

Good. FREAKIN. GRIEF!

Perhaps it was a good thing that I'd just come from a nice worshipful time in church, because at that point, I probably would've committed grave bodily harm, and maybe even said a bad word or two.

I think I need to go and talk to her some more. I am now worried more than ever about what's been happening in the classroom. I'm not there. I don't see what goes on. And Skip shuts up like a clam when I ask him about school. I'm freaked out now that this treatment of him is the norm.

What would've happened had I NOT accidentally happened upon him getting this grilling? Usually, I just wait in the car. I'm sure it was the hand of God that sent me into that classroom this afternoon.

When we got home, Skip asked if he needed to do anything else on his project.

"Nope, my dear. I'm finishing it for you. And I want you to know that *I* am proud of the work you did on it, even if your teacher doesn't understand. And I also want you to know that teachers usually only want what is best for you. And they're there for you. But today, I think Miss Heck really dropped the ball. You did a GREAT job on your puppet, and she just doesn't have a clue. She handled things badly, but I don't want you to dwell on that. Tomorrow, you and Abe are going to knock them dead."

And I shook his hand, and sent him outside to shoot hoops.