Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

You may recall a news story recently where a British Teacher abroad nearly got whacked for naming a Teddy Bear "Mohammad" as part of a class project. I'm glad she got out of Sudan with her life and didn't have to spend too much time in jail for her innocent mistake.

Anyway, the boys' school is doing a very similar project. We got Teddy (who is named Teddy and not Jesus, Moses, Joseph Smith, Buddha or Ganesh) and his overnight bag on Thursday night, and he spent the entire weekend with us. Devin had a good time dressing and re-dressing Teddy, and he even let the new Teddy sleep with him.



Even Trevor let the bear sleep with him one night.



Yes, even Socks got in on the action one night when neither Trevor nor Devin took Teddy to bed.


The point of the project isn't foster care for toys, though. The point is language development. After spending time with Teddy, the kids are supposed to write (or dictate) about Teddy's experience in the journal.

Devin scribbled a little and told me a few stories about how Teddy fell down the stairs on his head at which time his eyeball fell out. Then, he told me another story about throwing him in the air and catching him and having his eyeball fall out. And, he made a note of how Trevor shared Teddy with him. Except for the eyeballs falling out (which didn't really happen) Devin's dictation was pretty par for the course.

Trevor's wasn't.

See, he had been really excited about bringing Teddy home. He wasn't the first of his friends to spend time with Teddy, and he had heard about all the fun that everyone else had with Teddy.

His dictation started out normal enough. He told me how he threw him in the air and caught him. But, then he said that he got bored of Teddy and that was really disappointing and unexpected since everyone else had such fun. He was so bored that he just went back to his old sleeping friends for fun. He ended his journal entry with a Thank You for the opportunity to spend time with Teddy.

I felt the need to apologize to his teacher. Even though it was language development, I felt bad writing down what Trevor dictated. So, I mentioned it to his teacher. She's also British and abroad, judging from her accent. She said that they just roared and roared at Trevor's honesty...

Also, did I mention that his latest assessment from school has him listed at Blue Circle's authority not only on dinosaurs but also on nature. It's true.