"Flower"

I'm really tired today and have no idea what to write about, so I was thinking I'd share a funny story/picture with you. If you don't have a warped sense of humor you probably need to just skip this.

I teach preschool (my students are 4-6 years old) to students with speech and language and various other impairments. About two weeks ago, during center time, one of my students (a little girl) called me over to the play dough area and said, "Teacher! Look at my flower! It's growing!!" I looked at her mat and she had her pink play dough in a mound and with her two hands was squeezing and pulling the play dough up to make her flower grow. Well, I guess my assistant and I are a bit on the twisted side, because when we looked at each other we were both trying not to laugh. It certainly was phallic looking. We both said how pretty her flower was and quickly moved on to other students.

Well, it got worse. She kept squeezing and pulling. "Look teacher!! Look how big my flower is growing!"

"It certainly is!" I replied trying desperately to keep a straight face.

Then she made the comment that made us (my assistant and I) lose it. "Oh no! Teacher! My flower is falling!"

I turned around to see that her "flower" was indeed so long that it was starting to dip toward the ground. I mistakenly glanced at my assistant and I couldn't help myself. With a straight face, I said to her, "That's okay (insert student's name). All flowers droop eventually."

My assistant at this point got up and had to walk out of the room, while I walked over to my student and helped her fix her flower. Needless to say, shortly after my assistant returned, every teacher, assistant, secretary, and the principal came to see the infamous flower (it is a small building with only five classrooms). My student went home that day extremely proud of herself. Her flower was so pretty that everyone (all the adults) had come to see it. My principal came to see it last (just before the students were leaving) and said how pretty it was. My student gave her the flower. It is now being proudly displayed in the principal's office on her table (of course, she turned it upside down so that the base is up and the 'stem' is sitting in a plastic cup).



On a more serious note:
In case any of you are concerned that this flower is a sign that this little girl has been exposed to anything that would warrant a call to social services, at this time the conclusion is she hasn't been. It was brought up at the time that it was something we might need to be concerned about, but after the story was relayed to the school social worker and psychologist (and informal conversations were held with the student, my assistant, and myself), it was determined that the "flower" was just that...a flower. However, as with any of the students, we always keep an eye out for signs of abuse.