This post is about kids doing cute things

...for a change.

Adorable!

I think one of the reasons I don't love teaching kindergarten is because the kids can't really write yet.  As we have seen, kids have some hi-larious things to say, but when they're written down, you can laugh at them behind their backs.  Example: Tonight I read through and "graded" my eleven-year-old sister's report on King David.  (Side note: What is this crap?  Her teacher has them include a rubric on which the student, parent, and teacher each give the report a separate grade.  Does he really expect his students' parents to grade the thing fairly?  Don't tell me it's something cutesy like getting parents involved in their children's schoolwork.  Half of the kids are just going to forge it, and the rest of them will turn in a hand-written report on crinkled, yellow legal paper.  But I hope there's one kid whose parent flunks him, leaving the report drenched in red ink with comments like, "Use a dictionary much?" or maybe, "Dangle another preposition and you're grounded," or perhaps an encouraging "I SHOULD'VE HAD YOU ABORTED.")

Of course, my sister is brilliant and wonderful and shining like the little uniquely perfect snowflake she is, and so I humbly submit for your approval her introductory paragraph, with the comments I wish I really had made:

David is known for many things such as defeating Goliath and becoming the most successful leader that ruled Israel.  He started out as the eighth son of a family of important people. [But he ended as the second oldest.  Figure that one out.]  However, as he grew older, he accomplished many things including defeating the strongest and tallest Philistine that ever lived.  When he died the throne got passed on to one of his many sons named Solomon.  [Having so many Solomons around must have gotten pretty confusing.]  I learned many new words while writing this including anointed.  Read on to find out more about King David.

I know you're wishing you could read on to find out more about King David, but I can't include the entire report here, sadly.  You just don't get that kind of subtlety in kindergarten - although I did hear today that the water twisting down the blacktop from the hose was curving because there was a rattlesnake under the asphalt.  Which...what the hell?  Meanwhile, as the kids were all squatting in a huddle examining the little dribbling stream, I was charging over from the other side of the playground, armed with nothing but adrenalin and a moderate-to-low pain tolerance, shouting at them all to MOVE AWAY FROM THE HOSE because one girl told me there was a rattlesnake in it.


...One of his many sons named Solomon.  That slays me.




Image via this foreign site.