For a week prior to the cutting day, I talked about the dissection in class and the maturity and deference required to get the most from the experience. As the week passed, three of my problem children were suspended for various tomfoolery, leaving me with fewer gremlins to worry about and assuaging my fears of putting scalpels in their hands. I managed to pump the kids up and get them really excited about the learning experience.

On the day of the cut, I posted three rules on my board in BRIGHT RED MARKER.

1. ZERO TOLERANCE.
2. SHOW RESPECT.
3. ASK QUESTIONS!

No rules would be broken today.  Break one, you're out, no second chances.  Respect must be paid to the scientific specimens who gave their lives so that you could learn today.  Do not play with the parts, do not cut unless instructed to, and treat it with the care deserved by a precious, living thing.  To throw in a positive, I encouraged them to ask lots of questions, which they did!

Everyone who showed up on time for class and heard my rules had no trouble meeting my expectations.  To minimize management issues, I put the kids into four groups of four and rearranged my room along an aisle, putting two groups facing me on each side as I walked up and down the middle to help individual groups.  I watched closely for the first few minutes, saw that they understood my expectations, and then I began to circulate throughout the room.

During the dissection, one girl asked me if she could take out her cell phone and take pictures of the pig as her group explored it.  I was hesitant at first, but I laid down ground rules for phone usage and let them take pictures.  I figure there is no harm in documenting the experience.  Engrossed in the activity, no one attempted to text message, call anyone, or play any games on their cell phones while they had them out.  For once, I have found a positive effect of cell phones in the classroom.  When they go home from school, they can show their parents something cool they did in class today.  Anything that gets them thinking about science outside of school is dandy in my book.

All went well until one girl who strolled in late decided that it would be great fun to cut off the pig's tail and twirl it around like a helicopter blade.  I asked her where it said to make that cut in the directions.  No answer.  Did I say to make that cut?  No.  Should you be twirling the tail around like that?  No.  I reiterated my message of respect and familiarized her with my expectations for the experience.

Fast forward to the very end of the experience.  Our eviscerated pigs have been dissected and it's time to clean up.  I see the pig mutilating girl picking up her tailless pig and dancing it on the dissection tray for the amusement of her friends.  I'm pissed off.

"What are you doing?  Put the pig down.  Show respect."
"But Mister, it was nothing, just having fun."

"Would you like it if someone picked up your body after you died and made you dance?  Would that be funny?"

"YOU'RE IGNORANT!  YOU'RE IGNORANT!"  She screams this at me several times, leaving me dumbfounded.

"No, I'm not ignorant.  You are.  Take your stuff and get out of here."

I suppose she did not like the fact that I pierced her veil of immortality, clueing her into the fact that she, like the pig,  will meet her own demise someday, which led her to the rousing conclusion of my ignorance.  Clearly, she is a vampire or other undying being and I was insensitive to this fact.  Silliness aside, I removed her from class without delay.

I glanced at it.  No, no.  Could it be?  I took  a closer look.  Sure looks like one.  He's certainly not a chemist, and this drawing would leave most art schools unimpressed, but he sure did draw a dick on my quiz.  I rotated it ninety degrees.

A-ha!  Take on me!  That sure looks like IDK, the popular text message abbreviation for "I Don't Know."  I often see the acronym on papers I grade, but never have I seen such a brave and unusual arrangement of letters until now.  

I called the young man up to my desk.  I ask him to take a look at his paper.  He plays dumb.  One of his friends snickers at her desk, clearly in on the joke.  I shoot her a look; she laughs harder.  I ask him again to explain what he wrote, asking him why he chose to write it that way when it would have been more legible (and less obvious) to write it horizontally across the paper instead of vertically down the paper.  He tells me that he doesn't understand the classwork.  That much is clear, I tell him, and I sent him back to his desk.  I didn't feel like baiting him into a discussion on the finer points of cartoon cock drawing, but I also wanted to let him know that he isn't going to slip a crudely drawn, cleverly arranged acronym penis past his aloof but alert teacher.  

He left me a note on the back of his test.  He says it all the time in class, but it's nice to get it in writing.  Would if I could.  I'll try again in January. 

My loving wife's birthday is coming up in two weeks.  She's at work now, and we miss her.  Sundays aren't the same without her.  I love her company, her everything, and I love the fact that she sacrifices her Sundays to put in a few extra hours at work to cover for a sick colleague.  It's only temporary, we hope!  

We had a fun family birthday party for the December birthdays at my mother-in-law's house yesterday.  My wife and child, both December babies, received a carload of gifts that have taken over our house.  With the addition of the Christmas tree to the living room, it seems as if there is nowhere to turn in this shoebox home of ours.  We're cramped, but we love it, for now.  For the first time in years, I managed to escape injury when installing the 7.5 foot tall artificial tree in the living room.  I usually end up abraded, punctured, or lacerated by one or more of the unruly branches of the blue-green beast that I unbox and drag up from the basement every December for the holidays.  Injuries tend to be a major player in my holiday celebrations.  I sustained a wonderful gouge on the dorsal surface of my wrist from an uncooperative car seat before packing ourselves up for our Richmond trip.  It's looking better now, mostly closed and scabbed over after ten days of cycling through healing, cracking in the winter air, and healing again, before reopening due to the occupational hazards of writing on whiteboards and correcting papers, and healing again.   It should leave a nice little scar when all is written, frozen, and done.