Teaching 101: Expect the Unexpected

At the end of each day, I sign student's planners with their behavior grade for the day and call them to get their things ready to go. After calling each student, I sit down to read a chapter book (currently we're reading One Dark and Scary Night by Bill Cosby - the kids love Little Bill and it goes perfectly with the writing strategies we're talking about right now). On Wednesday, the following conversation ensued with a little girl in my class (let's call her Aaliyah):

me: *reading from the book*

Aaliyah: "Teacher, my sister put an egg in my backpack!"

me: *not really registering what she just said* "Aaliyah, please raise your hand or say excuse me before you interrupt the story."

Aaliyah: "But my sister put an egg in my backpack!" *holding open the front pocket of her backpack for me to see the RAW EGG THAT HAS BEEN SMASHED AND IS NOW A GOOEY-NASTY MESS*

me: "WHA??? Why would your sister do that?"

Aaliyah: "She was mad at me because my dad took me to the store, but made her stay home."

At that point I'm thinking that her dad must have let her buy a pony or something equally amazing at the store - what else would cause such a spiteful reaction from her sister? How does a child even come up with such a horrible idea?!?! A raw egg in my sister's backpack would never, ever, have crossed my mind!!!!! And if it had, I wouldn't have made it to see my next birthday.

The egg had been in there ALL day so it dripped in her cubby and left streaks on the floor from where she put the backpack down to put stuff up. We got the egg cleaned up (the whole while I'm seeing headlines flash through my mind for next week's newspaper, "Salmonella outbreak at local elementary school"). Then I had her take her planner back out so I could write a note to her parents. I told them (and her) that the backpack needs to be washed before it comes back to school. The next day she came without the backpack, but on Friday it returned and while she was getting ready to go she says, "Teacher I washed my backpack, but it still smells like my brother's feet."

So, yeah, expect the unexpected.