receiving an email entitled "Patrick in Math Class Today"

When Patrick was around 4 years old, we were at church on Easter Sunday.  After the children's sermon every other child wandered obediently back down the aisle looking for his or her parents.  Patrick was curious about where the steps went and went wandering up to the choir loft before Ken could catch him.  I

I think I knew then that we were in for an interesting time of it as parents.

Over the past 8 years I have received numerous emails from teachers.  Actually his kindergarten teacher grabbed us most days after school with a "Do you know what your son did today . . ."  Ummm no but it was probably something not horrible but enough to drive you batty.

I have always carefully read the notes, contacted the teachers and disciplined appropriately. 

However today's note was something different.  As I write below please understand that I am not insensitive to the tragedies that have happened not only in this country, but world wide.  Please understand that I know the world is a different place and we need to be protective of our kids and of our teachers.  But this one stretched it a bit for me  . . .

The note started out that Patrick was doodling today - uh oh - no it was OK because it was during free time while they were doing some folder organizing and he was done.  So the doodling was not the problem.  It went on to state that the other boys around Patrick were watching and snickering.  Uh oh - but wait it was not naked pictures or pictures of the teacher . . .   I am only going to post a small portion of the very long and concerned email . . .

When he showed me his doodle due to my asking to see it, he spouted off all this science jargon about atomic bombs and his drawing was an incorrect graphic (like a chemical reaction chain) of an atomic bomb chemical structure/response.  I took up the doodle just so I could have a record of this.What concerned me most about this whole incident was that he said something to the effect to me and front of the other boys, “I am fascinated by explosions.”

Here is my response . . .

Patrick is very interested in nuclear physics.  He does not experiment at home and while he engineers mightily on paper, and I am very aware of his technical designs, he has never shown any interest in blowing up anything around the house.  While he has lit an occasional firework (supervised) he is somewhat nervous around matches.  He does not play with chemicals etc.  In this case, I can assure you that his interest is truly academic.  And unfortunately I believe it is very common for boys this age to love to blow up things, hence the proliferation of video games where there are explosions and bombs and guns and gore.  I limit those in my house as well - most of what he is allowed to play are historical role play games. 

Patrick loves to sound like he is an expert in several areas where he does know more than the average 8th grader, just enough to get him into trouble.  I am not surprised that his atomic bomb chemical response was not correct.  Hopefully if he does go into this field (which unless his grades improve is highly unlikely) he will better understand the chemical and physical reactions involved.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention - I have discussed it with him, and believe this was no different then designing a futuristic car, or a spaceship or other imaginative item.

He is enjoying your math class and doing so much better than the last couple of years.  Thanks for being such a great and conscientious teacher.

  I know teachers have to be very cautious in today's world.  And she reported him to the principal and vice principal, so she has done her duty.  But goodness gracious.

Part of me wanted to make one of two replies:

1.  Phew I am glad he still does not have the steps exactly right.  I have not yet finished paying off the damages from the last one.

2.  Ummm how do you know that the chain reaction steps are not right?

But I figured that would get me a bunch of phone calls and letters and possibly an evaluation from the state of TN so the polite answer was better.

It will be interesting to see what other emails the next 5 years bring