Is That In The Job Description?

Riley's kindergarten class rotates between five "specials:" art, music, PE, science, and technology. Riley enjoys PE and is fond of her music teacher. But her absolute favorite is science. Early in the year she told me that they were going to be dissecting a fish in science. Actually, I think her exact words were, "cut up a dead fish." It seemed a little intense for 5-year-olds, but I was impressed and Riley was excited. Later that week I passed the science teacher and asked her about it. She denied ever having given Riley any reason to hope for a fish dissection. She emphatically stated that there was no way she was "cutting up" anything with kindergartners. She added that they do have a beta in her classroom though. I suggested she keep an eye on the fish, since Riley may just be biding her time, waiting for the little guy to die.

Then this week I learned from a friend who has older children at the same school, that every year the second-graders dissect cow eyes. I don't think the kids do any actual cutting, but they break into small groups, watch while a parent-volunteer does the dissecting, and then the kids get to touch and handle the different parts of the eye. I knew Riley would be interested, so I told her what I'd learned when she got home from school. Five minutes later she told me the following story (which I'm sure was another piece of fiction):

"Mom, today Mrs. Rosh (her teacher) needed to talk to Mrs. Vastin (the science teacher) so she let me and Evie and Sarah come with her. But Mrs. Vastin wasn't in her classroom. [dramatic pause] I'll be she was out hunting cows!"