Well now that I have that song stuck in your head . . .

Every morning when my alarm sounds at 5:40, there is usually a little snippet of some silly story that happened to make the headlines. These are always stories that leave the listener wonder wha?, or in my case thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me!

Let me preface this story with the fact of when I was in 8th grade, my Target class studied an entire week-long unit on magic. *Target was a special class to which us smart kids belonged. In reality, I think it was 15 kids who happened to get lucky on a multiple choice test. I didn’t feel any smarter than the kids who were not in Target.* We referred to the unit not as magic, but as prestidigitation. (yes, I had to look that up in the dictionary just to make certain I spelled it correctly)

Prestidigitation is the sleight of hand, just in case you didn’t know.

Anywho, a substitute teacher has apparently found himself in hot water (as in, not able to teach anymore) for showing the students how to make a match stick disappear. Angry parents claim he was practicing wizadry.

You’ll have to forgive me for turning off the alarm before I could get anymore details (I didn’t want to wake Bridget who was sleeping so peacefully in my bed), and I can’t seem to find the story on the Internet. I want to say the incident happened in Florida or Texas. Perhpas a reader from Florida or Texas could elaborate.

C’mon. Seriously?

This will blow your mind, but did you know that when my husband was in HS (in the early - mid 1980’s, I know! he’s OLD!) students actually brought weapons to school for some of their extracurricular classes? Can you imagine THAT happening in a school today??

My 7th-grade English teacher (hello Mr. Johnson!) had THE WORST temper and would frequently slam desks on the ground or hurl chalkboard erasers at students. He also had a horrible habit of calling me “Malassa” instead of “Melissa,” although I think that was more a product of his heavy southern accent than intentional rudeness.

What about my sociology professor who publicly berated his students? Heaven forbid if no one raised his hand to answer a question during class, and you might as well have signed your own death warrant if you so much as forgot your homework.

Then there was one of my elementary school teachers who refused to let my classmate go to the bathroom and then who, for pity’s sake, wet her pants in class. How embarrassing do you suppose that was for an eight-year-old girl? I have to imagine that happening to Hannah, and HEADS WOULD ROLL if I ever found out a teacher denied her the dignity of urinating into a toilet in privacy.

Do you suppose that any of the teachers got fired for any of those questionable behaviors?

And now a teacher has lost a job because angry parents claim making a match stick disappear is akin to practicing wizadry? *Like I said, I don’t have all the details. There may be more to the story that I don’t know. My response is based only on what I heard in the five seconds it took for me to get out of bed and turn off the radio.*

Anyway. I’m shaking my head . . .

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There’s something new over at Root & Sprout. Go see if you can find out what it is! (hint: I designed it myself with a little help from Hannah) While you’re over there, don’t forget to take a look at two new pages I added recently, Cool Stuff and People You Should Meet.

Remember to send in your articles!!! If you would like your article featured in the June 1st installment, please have it (or them!) to me by May 15th. If it’s a little late, I’ll still include it (’cause I’m nice). I just need time to edit and format, and I don’t want to be bombarded at the last moment. I realize there will be a lull in articles between now and June 1st, but it won’t usually be like that. Remember, my original plan was not to release the site so early. Root & Sprout will publish articles on a bi-weekly basis. I would *love* to get to a point where I am so overrun with articles that I am forced to publish them on a weekly basis. Won’t you help me get that way?? Won’t you please tell your readers about Root & Sprout and how it has the potential to be a wonderful web-based resource for parents??

At some point down the road (hopefully within the next year), I’m hoping to offer a few PAID writing positions. Yes! You may have the chance to become an official writer for the Root & Sprout website. Someone asked why I need to address all the legal and business stuff anyway if I’m just posting articles, and it’s because I’m anticipating that Root & Sprout will GROW into an online magazine (that’s running a business, friends).

So . . . start sending in those articles and polishing off your resumes!! There may be a job for you.