School Rules
Friends have asked me how my kids were doing in elementary school, and I found that I had trouble getting through. Maybe the context is missing, and not until you have a child in the system yourself, do you understand what it is like. The fictional story below attempts to convey the child experience.

Chapter 1
Jack liked going to school, he had friends, there were ball games to play, and sometimes, the classes were interesting. The one thing he had trouble with, was following school rules. If he arrived to school a bit early, he couldn’t use the playing structure, nor could he hang his bag in its place outside the classroom. If he needed to use the restroom, he could only use the one reserved for 4–5th graders; he could not use any other grade’s bathroom. When the bell rang for the end of recess, instead of running to be first in line, he had to squat in place. When eating lunch, he had to sit for a full 30 minutes, instead of going to play as soon as his plate was empty.
On Monday, the school principal’s lunch box went missing. This was odd, sure, stuff sometimes got stolen, but never items that belonged to the teachers. The school was searched, and stern letters were sent to parents. All to no avail, the lunch box disappeared as if into thin air.
The next day, after the hoopla died down, Jack and Judy conducted their own search, and found yellow bread crumbs on the lawn. The principal was famous for eating yellow bread; he said it had some special kind of vitamin supplement. Upon a thorough search of the lawn, they found a trail of crumbs leading to the creek that runs next to the school. “What do you think Judy? Maybe an animal took the lunchbox to its lair, and ate the food?” Jack asked. “That is exactly what I was thinking” Judy answered.
On Wednesday, at lunch, Jack saw a raccoon dragging a lunch box through the lawn. It had a picture of the smiling face of the principal sewn on it, so it was clear who it belonged to. Jack got up and started running after the critter, which seemed unconcerned. “Jack, where do think you are going?” Mrs. Brown said sternly, “It is lunch time, you can’t get up for another 20 minutes. You are staying for detention today”. Jack couldn’t believe it, but Mrs. Brown was very clear, and he went back to sit on the bench. From this vantage point, he could see the raccoon taking his time dragging the lunch box, with the picture rattling and jumping.
On Thursday, the pre-lunch recess ended, and Jack was squatting, waiting to be called for lunch. From the corner of his eye, he caught a strange sight, it was the raccoon, dragging the lunch box, again. “He is not getting away this time” Jack said to himself, and ran after it as fast as he could. “Where do you think you are going?” Mrs. Brown shouted, and before Jack had a chance to respond she added “Jack — — detention”.
On Friday, after lunch, Jack was looking for items to recycle; there was a school rule requiring throwing three items to the recycling bin. “Here is my second item” he thought, and picked up an old coca-cola can. As he was getting up, he saw the raccoon, again. His impulse was to go after it, but then his better judgment kicked in, and he decided that all he got for his troubles was detention, so, he better leave the little thief alone. “What do you think you are doing?” Mrs. Brown shouted, “don’t you see the raccoon getting away with the principal’s lunch box! Go after it!” Jack started running. The raccoon took notice, and jumped into the bushes, with the lunch box in tow. Jack came back empty handed, and got detention, again.
Chapter 2
Judy’s class was growing silkworms, it was a biology experiment. Mrs. Anderson explained that the silkworm is the caterpillar form of the silk moth, which is native to Northern China. `The caterpillar turns into a cocoon, and emerges as a moth. The silk is harvested from the cocoons, and can be woven into beautiful fabrics. “We will feed the worms mulberry leaves, from the trees outside; they eat no other food. There is one important rule: do not touch the worms, they are very sensitive”.
A week went by, and the caterpillars grew from peanut size to half an inch, all feathery white. They ate incessantly, with amazing appetite. You could almost see them grow, Judy thought she could see changes from one day to the next. In the third week she decided to mark the worms, because she was confusing them, that way, she reasoned, she could measure them at the beginning of each day, and see the progress. At recess, when everyone was outside, she snuck back into class, and colored the three largest worms with blue, red, and green whiteboard markers. She risked staying another minute, and measured the largest worm, the blue one, by gently stretching it on a ruler. It was about an inch long. Curiosity satisfied, she tiptoed to the door, and snuck back out.
When class started, Mrs. Anderson, at first, did not notice the marked worms. However, Jason, the teacher’s pet, raised his hand and pointed out the markings. “Who did this?” Mrs. Anderson asked. No one answered, the silence lengthened and engulfed the classroom. “Very well, I will find the culprit, and he or she will be very sorry”, Mrs. Anderson finally said.
The next day, Judy raised her hand and suggested that they could measure the marked worms and see how fast they grow. Mrs. Anderson liked that suggestion, but then her smile faded and she asked “was it you, did you mark the worms?” “Of course not, Mrs. Anderson, but since they are already marked, we can use that for our experiment, can’t we”? Judy answered with a sweet smile. This was hard to deny, so, Mrs. Anderson swallowed her suspicions, and they proceeded to measure the worms through the week.
Everything went well, until George decided to check what happens when you pour water on the caterpillars. He started by pouring water on the leaves, because he thought it would make them tastier. Drawing from his own experience, he never ate lettuce unless it was inside a hamburger, and there was mayo and ketchup. So, he reasoned, there must be some sauce with the leaves. Contrary to expectation, the caterpillars shied away from the water, so he brought it nearer to them. Judy watched this with growing alarm, “don’t pour water on them, it will erase the markers!” she shouted, and ran to save the caterpillars. By the time she got to the vivarium, the caterpillars were swimming, she fished them out, and put them carefully on the next table. “What did you say?” Mrs. Anderson asked tightly. “George was going to erase my beautiful watermarks!” Judy cried. “Judy — — detention”, Mrs. Anderson announced.
Chapter 3
Morning class was the hardest, Jack thought. It was a grueling two hours, from 8:15 until 10:15, without any breaks. It was all because the school got additional funds for physical education, so they decided to remove one of the morning recesses, and create two additional weekly P.E. sessions. The school figured it was a win/win situation, more P.E. sessions, and less free time for the kids to get into trouble. The air was warm, it was the beginning of summer, and Jack felt the itch to get some exercise before going into the morning class. It was 8:05 am, Dad dropped them off a bit early, as he was off on his way to work. This left a short ten minute window. Jack took a quick look around, no one was watching. He dropped his school bag next to the play structure, and went for a loop on the zip cord, and then to the swings, and on to the monkey bars, and then he noticed it was too quiet. Looking back across the basketball courts, he saw his classmates walking single file after Mrs. Brown. As quickly as he could, he ran back, and just managed to be the last kid into class. “Whoah, that was close” he thought, as he relaxed into his chair. The contours of the backrest felt familiar against his back, and he congratulated himself on a punishment avoided in the nick of time. “English homework in the blue bin,” Mrs. Brown announced, and everyone pulled their English homework from their backpack, and went to place it in the basket. That was when Jack discovered that he forgot his backpack on the lawn outside. “Well Jack, where is your homework?” the teacher asked. “Can I go to the bathroom first?” “Sure, if you give me a ticket.” The class had a system where each kid got five weekly tickets, and each trip to the restroom during class required a ticket. Jack handed over one of his tickets, and went outside, he had two left. He closed the door, and was outside. The basketball courts were empty, and there was no one around; he headed straight to the play structure, but the the bag wasn’t where he had left it. This was not good, not good at all. Instead, there was a mostly eaten apple, and some peanuts. It looked like an an animal had eaten them. But there were no animals in sight, wait, there was something at the edge of the grassy baseball field. It was a tail with rings, a raccoon! Jack started running.
When he reached the edge of the field, the raccoon was already gone, but there were plenty of pieces from his backpack, there was also something resembling a lunch bag, albeit torn and shabby looking. Time was running out, so Jack stuffed everything he could find into the backpack, and ran back to class.
He handed his homework with a sigh of relief, and sat down back at his chair. He was winded, but a good feeling was flowing through him, a feeling of triumph against the odds, of averting a heavy blow in the nick of time. He was elated.
He lay down his bag, and something tumbled out of it. “Say, isn’t that the principal’s missing lunch box?” Gary said. “Jack, where did you get that?” Mrs. Brown asked. He was caught completely off guard, “It was the raccoon!” he finally blurted. The teacher scowled, “I have heard about that raccoon one too many times. Detention this afternoon!”
This post originally appeared on my home page.