In addition to my freckle-faced, red-headed Shanna in the first grade, I had eight other short people clamoring for 1st grade attention. One of those little challenges was Jacob. Jacob was a short ‘Dennis the Menace’ type of kid. Socially, he struggled with the change of classroom and struggled with the other students in the class. As the year moved on, I looked at different ways to build responsibility in my students. Eventually, I decided a classroom pet would be the answer—enter “Rocky” and “Road,” two gerbils from the local pet store.
Jacob was especially interested in the gerbils and spent his free time watching their antics. I put the feed seed in their food dish and went about my business. It was a few days later I went to feed them again that I noticed they still had seed in their dish so I didn’t feed them more. I decided to wait until the dish was empty.
The next week, Jacob introduced me to his issue of “stealing.” After being caught, I left him in the classroom alone while I walked the others down the hall to gym class. We were going to have a long talk when I returned and then we were going to call mom. When I returned to class, Jacob was sitting with his head on his desk, sobbing quietly.
“Jacob, what’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked at me through his big crocodile tears, “Rocky’s dead, Mrs. Tupper.”
“He is?” I walked over to the gerbil cage. Sure enough, Rocky was dead and Road didn’t look too healthy either. I removed Rocky from the cage. I didn’t recall a class teaching me how to deal with the death of a class pet.
“ What are we going to do?” asked Jacob. “We are going to talk about your behavior.” I said, sticking with my initial plan to discuss his incident of theft.”
“Jacob, you know when I was four years old my mom took me to see my cousin Teresa. She had a plastic heart and it was full of half dollars. I wanted that heart more than anything, so when she was in the bathroom, I stuck the heart in my pocket,” Jacob’s eyes widened at my confession. “Later in the day, I was out showing all my neighborhood friends my ‘treasure’ when I heard my mom call me to come home for supper. So I hid the heart behind my back so my mom wouldn’t see it.”
“You should have buried it in a hole,” suggested the knowing thief.
“Yes, you are right because when I went to my mom she asked me what I had behind my back. I told her ‘nothing’ so that was lie #1 (I held up 1 finger). She asked me again what I had behind my back and again I told her ‘nothing’ (I held up 2 fingers). Finally, my mom said, ‘Lori Rose, you tell me what you have behind your back.’ Now, I always knew when my mom called me by my first and second name that she meant business and I had better shape up. So I showed her the plastic heart. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked me. ‘Teresa gave it to me’ (I held up 3 fingers).” Jacob’s eyes widened even more.
“Did she believe you?” he asked totally engrossed in my story.
“You know,” I began, “that’s the funny thing about doing something wrong. You usually end up having to lie and do even more things wrong than you meant to. Eventually I had to tell the truth and my mom made me take the heart back to my cousin.”
“Did your cousin say you could keep it then?” he asked hopeful that this story would have a good ending.
“No. She was very upset at me for stealing it and it took a long time for her to ever trust me again. Jacob, this happens every time you do something wrong. You usually end up doing more things wrong than you meant to and then it is very difficult to get people to trust you again.” Jacob started sobbing again. “My mom says she never trusts me.” I looked at this precious moon-faced little guy with his overflowing eyes.
“Well Jacob, I DO trust you and I KNOW you will learn to do the right thing.”
“Are you going to call my mom?”
“No, I’m thinking I won’t call your mom this time, but if it happens again not only will I call her but I will ask her to come in to have a talk.”
Fear filled his eyes. He knew that would not work well to his advantage if his mother was called into the school.
“So,” I concluded, “today you need to take care of business, apologize to Michelle for stealing her money and promise not to do it again. Okay?”
Jacob nodded his head in agreement. “But Mrs. Tupper?” he asked, “what are we going to do about Rocky?”
I looked over at the dead gerbil I had laid in a small box.
“I guess we’ll have to have a funeral” I answered.
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