I find your lack of Christmas tree-shape...disturbing

The photo does not do my wall "art" justice. It is actually much more hideous in person. The original idea was to have the children graph the letters in their names ("Sorry about that, by the way, Jeremiah.  And Madeleine...aren't you glad you moved before I rolled this little assignment out?" Like rats escaping a sinking ship... Ian, however, was thrilled with this little project.) and then calculate the area and perimeter of their personalized creations. Great. Colorful. Meaningful. Not a worksheet. Not Mrs. Mosiman droning on and on (and on) for hours. I would then take their completed crafts and arrange them on the wall to resemble a Christmas tree.

Uh-huh. Knowing that even the slightest hint of ingratitude or criticism will send me into a soda-sucking rage, the children regarded the finished "tree" with care. "Yeah," they said slowly, squinting their eyes and tilting their heads as though trying to locate the image in those hidden picture portraits at the mall, "it does kind of look like a tree shaped like Darth Vader's head." Stung by their harsh observations, I outlined the area (math humor) in festive holiday lights.  "That looks great," my students said excitedly, immediately taken in by the bright lights of the Darth Vader-shaped tree on their classroom wall. Visitors to the room would glance at our unusual decoration and pause as they fought for the right descriptive words. My kids inevitably would help them out. "Mrs. Mosiman made us a tree shaped like Darth Vader's head," they'd brag. I finally couldn't stand it and whipped out the green cellophane wrap and wrestled it onto the wall. I stood back to admire the effect and was immediately devastated. It didn't look any more tree-like...even with the appropriate color. I hurriedly cut out eyes and a respirator mask to attach to my "tree," slapped a light-saber on the wall and called it a day. The kids couldn't have been happier and no one questioned this decision as it coincided with the debut of the new "Star Wars" movie.

We learned a lot from this experience. That Mrs. Mosiman forcing fifteen names into a discernible shape is the path to the dark side. That Mrs. Mosiman forcing fifteen names into a discernible shape leads to anger. That Mrs. Mosiman forcing fifteen names into a discernible shape leads to fear. That Mrs. Mosiman forcing fifteen names into a discernible shape leads to suffering. We cannot unlearn what we have learned.