Egg Babies

In fifth grade we spend 2 carefully proscribed, meticulously censored hours teaching "Growth and Development". Basically, this means we shut the blinds, separate the XX from the XY and talk about puberty. It's all very hush-hush - I mean what else would you expect from a country founded by Puritans? Anyway, my Thursday afternoon was taken up watching an ancient, but factual video (seriously, the outfits were dated enough that I would have mocked them when I was in 5th grade), answering questions asked by blushing, but intensely focused, girls ("What if I get it when only my dad is home?"), and displaying transparencies of genitalia on the overhead.

Coupled (pun NOT intended) with this is our Egg Baby unit, a two day project during which students are given a hard-boiled egg and told to name it, love it, and protect it. The idea is to show what kind of responsibility goes along with being an adult and, ultimately, a parent. The reality of it, at least in my room, was that my relatively well balanced students LOST THEIR FREAKIN' MINDS. From Thursday morning to Friday afternoon I was dealing with a constant barrage of egg related problems.

"So-and-so bumped me and made me drop my egg!"

"Somebody called my egg a name."

"My egg and That Other Girl's egg are boyfriend and girlfriend."

"I can't go outside yet, my egg hasn't been fed and burped and bathed and put down for his afternoon nap."

"But I needed to finish making this outfit for my egg, so I couldn't work on the assignment."

"A student in your class grabbed an egg belonging to one of my students and smashed it repeatedly against a desk."

"I don't want a girl egg baby."

By the end of the first day I was ready to take all the little darling Egg Babies and make a giant egg salad sandwich.

The children were required to provide a "safe" home for their egg baby. Most were housed in cardboard boxes of various sizes. The simplest of homes were stuffed with tissues and fabric scraps to cushion their travels. The most complex had beds and tables and Barbie food and toys and BBQs and clothing.

I collected the eggs after lunch on Friday. Some of them were still in perfect condition. ("Do I have to give him to you? Can't I keep him?") Most were slightly cracked or dented. ("I think I squeezed him too hard while I was sleeping.") A few were in pretty bad shape. ("All his skin fell off so I put him in this plastic egg to be safe.") One came back to me missing half the white and all of the yolk and covered in dirt. (There was no explaination for this one.) I'm just grateful that no one cried when they had to give up their little darling.