Doug was a sixth grader and his class was studying a unit about dinosaurs. His teacher had been a first grade teacher the year before and she just had to do a unit about dinosaurs since she had so much dinosaur stuff from that teaching assignment. She also introduced a lot of more advanced materials about dinosaurs and she even arranged for the class to go on a fieldtrip to an archeological site where remains of dinosaurs had been found.
One of the first assignments the class had to do in the dinosaur unit was to write a short story about dinosaurs. They had three days to write it and so like most of the kids in his class, Doug put it off until the last minute. He woke up on the day that it was due and he wrote out the first decent story he could think of. Although he was in a hurry he wrote fairly neatly. Here is the story that he wrote:
Hungry Dinosaurs
There once was a hungry Alyssiosaurus who saw a nice,
plump, and juicy Brianosaurus chomping away at some tasty
grass. She said to herself, "That looks like a delicious
Brianosaurus. I think I'll eat him!" So, the Alyssiosaurus
crept up behind a huge row of trees as close as she could
get to the Brianosaurus and then she charged the enormous
beast. At exactly the same time, a Cheyennosaurus had the
exact same idea, and she came charging at the Brianosaurus
from the other side of the huge beast. As luck would have
it, the Brianosaurus decided to move at this precise time
and he got out of the way of the charging predators. The
Alyssiosaurus and the Cheyennosaurus crashed into each
other and passed out for a full thirty minutes before
regaining consciousness.
When the Alyssiosaurus and the Cheyennosaurus woke up,
they were both even hungrier than before. They looked at
each other and said, "Let's go get something to eat!"
They looked around, but there was no sign of the
Brianosaurus and so they had to go hunt for something else
to eat. After a while they saw a herd of little Allanosauruses.
"Yummy!" said the Alyssiosaurus. "Small, but tasty," said
the Cheyennosaurus. By working together the Alyssiosaurus
and the Cheyennosaurus were able to corner the little
Allanosauruses in a box canyon. "Let's have an Allanosaurus
eating contest," said the Allysiosaurus. "Yes, that sounds
like a scrumptuous idea," said the Cheyennosaurus.
So, the Alyssiosaurus and the Cheyennosaurus each grabbed a
little Alannosaurus and ate them whole. "Not bad!" said the
Alyssiosaurus. "Yes, they are so tasty you can't stop with
just one," said the Cheyennosaurus. The two predators began
grabbing and devouring the little Alannosauruses. They ate
and they ate until there were no more Alannosauruses left.
"Mmmm, that was good," said the Cheyennosaurus rubbing her
protruding tummy. "Yep, those little guys make a
pretty good meal if you eat enough of them," said the
Alyssiosaurus. With their bellies full, the Alyssiosaurus
and the Cheyennosaurus collapsed on the ground and took a
long nap.
Although all the giant dinosaurs became extinct during
the Ice Age, the Allanosaurus was the first dinosaur to
become extinct thanks to the apetites of the Alyssiosaurus
and the Cheyennosaurus.
As you might have guessed, there were kids in Doug's class who were named
Allan, Cheyenne, Alyssa, and Brian. Every student in Doug's class had to
read his or her story for the rest of the class. When it was Doug's turn he
sort of smiled as he stood up because he knew that his story was sort of
funny. As he read his story the kids in the class started laughing, but
Brian and Allan got mad. They were sensitive about their appearance. Brian
was an extremely chubby boy and Allan was very small and not very athletic. Doug's
teacher noticed this and said, "Doug, that's a silly story and you're going
to have to change the names and you're going to have recess detention for
three days for making fun of other students in this class."
"That's not fair!" said Doug.
"Should I make it a full week?" asked Doug's teacher.
"No ma'am. I'm sorry," said Doug.
It was only thirty minutes later when Doug had to serve his first recess detention. His teacher made him write, "I will not make fun of classmates," thirty times after he erased and changed the dinosaur names in his story. She let him take a quick restroom break near the end of recess after she said, "Young man, I expect you to use better judgement from now on. Your common sense should have told you that it's not nice to make fun of your classmates."
Doug's friend Sawyer had been sitting just outside the classroom door the whole time and he heard what their teacher had just said. When they were a few classrooms down from their classroom, Sawyer mimiced their teacher by saying, "It's not nice to make fun of your classmates."
Doug laughed at the funny voice Sawyer used to make fun of their teacher and then he said, "How come you're not out playing with the other kids? You don't miss me that much do you?"
Sawyer socked Doug in the arm as they entered the restroom and said, "No! The other kids were making fun of Brian for being fat and I didn't want to get in trouble for it."
Sawyer's judgement was very accurate. After the class walked in from recess, Brian raised his hand and said that some of the other kids in the class were teasing him for being fat while they were out on the playground. He added, "I was just eating some peanuts for a snack and they were all calling me a pig and making pig sounds at me."
Many of the kids in the class laughed at this. The teacher gave the class a stern look and they all quieted down and then she said, "It's wrong to tease a fellow student about his or her appearance. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in this classroom or out on the playground. You children should respect each other and not tease one another like this! Now, who can tell me who was doing the teasing?"
Several students raised their hands.
The teacher picked one student and that student named off several children in the class including Sawyer.
Sawyer raised his hand, but the teacher called on another student.
"No, Sawyer wasn't one of them, but it all started with Doug's story," she said.
Sawyer put his hand down since he felt that he was off the hook.
The teacher said, "I've already dealt with Doug. What I need to know is who was doing the teasing during recess."
It took about ten minutes to resolve this issue and it turned out that six other students in the class joined Doug for recess detention on the next day. They all had to write essays about the importance of treating their fellow classmates with respect and about why teasing was such a bad thing to do. Doug's teacher also brought in the principal to give the class a lecture on the topics of bullying, teasing, harassment, and treating people with proper respect.
"All that over a stupid story," said Sawyer at lunch shortly after listening to their principal deliver his long-winded lecture.
"It wasn't a stupid story!" said Doug pretending that his feelings had been hurt.
"I didn't mean that your story was stupid. I just meant that they're making a big deal out of this whole thing. If Ms. Lamo hadn't made such a big deal about your story, this whole thing wouldn't have happened," said Sawyer.
Doug's and Sawyer's teacher was not actually named Lamo, they just called her that when she wasn't around. Her real name began with the letter "L" and there was an "m" sound somewhere in the middle of it.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. She kind of over-reacts a lot of the time," said Doug.
"Yeah, and that just makes everything worse than it would have been if she had just not done anything to start with," said Sawyer.
"Maybe she should get a prescription for some pills to calm her nerves," said Doug.
"That might help," said Sawyer as he imagined himself as a doctor prescribing some medicine for Ms. Lamo.
After lunch that day Ms. Lamo had a problem with one of the computers in the class. She couldn't get a certain application to close and so she asked Doug and Sawyer to take a look at it for her. The boys had the problem solved in just a few seconds. Ms. Lamo often relied on the boys for help with technology problems. She told herself that she was building their self-esteem by making them feel important by giving them opportunities to help out in class. The boys had a different perspective on this sort of thing.
That day on the way home from school, Doug said to Sawyer, "What I don't get is, how can she ask me to help her out in the class like that and at the same time punish me for something as stupid as what she's punishing me for?"
"Because she's lame and isn't smart enough to figure things out the right way," said Sawyer.
"But how'd she get to be a teacher if she's so dumb?" asked Doug.
"She's not the only teacher like that. Remember we had to help Ms. Venter all the time last year with her computer," said Sawyer.
"And remember in third grade when Ms. Peach always made mistakes on subtraction problems," said Doug.
"My dad says that a lot of teachers are really crumby at math. He thinks they go into teaching because that's all they can do," said Sawyer.
"That's not nice," said Doug.
"He says that Mr. Olsen is an exception to that rule," said Sawyer.
Mr. Olsen was the science teacher at their school. He and Sawyer's father were good friends. They worked on a lot of computer projects together. In fact, Sawyer and Doug were on their way to Mr. Olsen's house as they talked. They had a friend named Patrick who was in the fifth grade and who was Mr. Olsen's nephew. Patrick's mother had sent him to live with his uncle since he was too much for her to handle. When Sawyer and Doug got to Patrick's house, Patrick and another friend named James were in the first livingroom playing video games. Mr. Olsen arrived home a few minutes later and went straight to the kitchen to get something to drink. Sawyer and Doug followed him into the kitchen and Patrick and James followed them to see what they were up to.
Doug took his folded up story out of his back pocket and handed it to Mr. Olsen and explained what his teacher had gotten him in trouble for. "Would you have busted me like that if I wrote it in your class?" asked Doug.
"Hmmm. Well, first of all, I teach science and not creative writing and, secondly, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on the disciplinary practices of another teacher," said Mr. Olsen.
"He just wants to know if you would bust him for the story, not all that other stuff," said Patrick pressuring his uncle to answer the question directly and not to avoid it.
"Well, no, I would not consider this to be a disciplinary matter unless I had previously made it clear that a story like this was inappropriate," said Mr. Olsen.
"So, you're saying that you wouldn't have given him three days of detention for writing the story," said Sawyer.
"Probably not, I don't see what the big deal is," said Mr. Olsen.
"Well, Brian acted like his feelings were hurt," said Doug.
"Well, then Brian should be less sensitive and if he really feels that bad about being over-weight, maybe he should try losing some weight!" said Mr. Olsen.
The boys laughed.
Mr. Olsen added, "People make excuses for being over-weight too often. As a science teacher I can tell you that it's not that hard to lose weight and that it's extremely rare for a person to have a condition that makes them fat!"
Patrick said, "Oh no, it sounds like you guys got him started."
The boys laughed and Patrick pre-emptively added, "Calm down Uncle Keith."
Mr. Olsen laughed and said, "You'd better start running pip-squeak!"
Patrick smiled and took off running out to the livingroom. The boys laughed. They had seen Patrick and his uncle get into several wrestling matches and the outcome was always hilarious. Sometimes the other boys joined in, but this time Patrick wanted to get back to his video game and so he didn't tease his uncle into wrestling.
A week later, the day for the big fieldtrip to the archeological site arrived. All the sixth-graders loaded into a school bus and drove to the site which was about forty-five miles away. All the students in Doug's class were primed with tons of information about the dinosaurs and the Ice Age. Their teacher had done a good job of presenting a lot of interesting information. As the students stepped off the bus, their teacher handed them name tags which they stuck to their shirts so that the guides at the archeological site would be able to use the students' names during the tours and presentations.
During the first two hours of the fieldtrip the students were divided into four groups and they rotated between four different guides and activities. Doug and Sawyer were lucky enough to wind up in the same group. In their first activity, they got to do some digging with archeological tools. The guide for this activity explained how careful archeologists were when excavating a site and gave the students some time to experience what it was like to excavate a site. The second activity was a demonstration of how a skeleton was assembled from individual bones. The guide for this activity put together a small scale skeleton of a dinosaur. The students took turns handing the bones to the guide as he explained what he was doing. The third activity was just a slide show in which the history of the site was presented to the students. The last activity was a tour of the active site where actual archeologists were excavating real dinosaur bones.
At lunch the class was treated to a delicious meal of barbequed brontosaurus burgers, tricerotops salad, pterodactyl juice, and some cake shaped like a tyranosaurus rex with lots of little candy dinosaurs on the frosting. Doug's and Sawyer's class was joined for lunch by another group of students from another town. This group had done the museum tour in the morning and they would divide into groups for the four activities in the afternoon. After lunch the students sang dinosaur songs around a little campfire in a darkened room. The room was a large, circular assembly hall with a fireplace in the center. Since it was a warm day they used a gas flame on artificial logs to simulate the campfire. The staff at the archeological site had made up lyrics which included information about dinosaurs in them that they sang to well-known tunes.
After lunch and after singing dinosaur songs, Doug's and Sawyer's entire class went on a tour of the main museum which included inside and outside exhibits. The guy giving the tour was pretty funny and he made little jokes about the various exhibits and told humorous stories along the way. Although the tour was nearly two hours long, very few of the students became bored at any time. The guide worked in a restroom break and he had the class do an obstacle course. Also he staged a couple mental and physical contests with the class in the course of the tour which helped to keep things from getting boring.
At the end of the tour, the guide took some time to allow the students to ask him some questions. There were lots of good questions from the class and after several questions one of the students in the class asked, "Did all the dinosaurs die during the Ice Age?"
"That's a very good question because although I told you about some of the dinosaur-like creatures that still survive today, I didn't say anything about how some of the dinosaurs may have become extinct before the Ice Age even began," explained the tour guide.
The guide paused and looked at the class to see if they were understanding what he was getting at and then he continued. "Let's say that there used to be two big carnivorous dinosaurs called the Markusosaurus and the Cheyennosaurus and that they were really hungry all the time."
The class laughed at the names of the dinosaurs and Markus and Cheyenne proudly smiled as they were given the honor of having dinosaurs named after them.
"Well, some days they might chow down on a big, delicious Brianosaurus," added the tour guide extending a hand in Brian's direction.
The class laughed and Brian smiled, but tried not to look embarrassed in front of the tour guide.
"And other days they might want to snack on some Allanosauruses," said the tour guide gesturing in Allan's direction.
"Hey, this sounds like your story," whispered Sawyer to Doug.
Other kids also recognized the similarity, but didn't say anything since they were eager to hear the guide finish the story.
"Well, let's say that those little Allanosauruses were really tasty and that the Markusosaurus and the Cheyennosaurus decided one day to have an Allanosaurus eating contest," added the tour guide.
Several kids in the class glanced at Doug after this part of the story.
The tour guide continued, "It could be possible that the Allanosauruses could have been hunted to extinction by bigger and more powerful dinosaurs like the Cheyennosauruses and the Markusosauruses."
The class laughed at the story and their teacher said with a big smile, "That was a wonderful story, very creative!"
Doug was stunned. He whispered to Sawyer, "That's not what she said to me!"
Somehow Doug's teacher had the feeling that she had heard the story before, but she couldn't quite remember when or where that could have been.
Before the class headed over to the bus to load up for the trip home, their teacher thanked the tour guide one more time. She thanked him for the "marvelous presentation and the creative story" and she added, "You really made the students feel like they were part of the history of the dinosaurs by including their names in your story like that! It's good for their self-esteem to get noticed like that."
The tour guide thanked Ms. Lamo and the class for their courteous attention and waved good-bye to them. To be really silly he blew kisses at them as they walked toward the school bus. The kids blew kisses back at him until his attention was required by another person who worked at the archeological site.
On the trip back to home, Doug joked, "I should sue that guy for copy-right infringement."