RIP Class Pet || August 25-26th

At 2:45pm today the first week of the 2015-16 school-year will officially be in the books. My average bedtime has been 8:00pm and my snooze counts have been hitting records lately, but overall this week has been pretty great.

Oh wait. That was until our class pet died. The third day of school. Worst teacher ever.

Here is how the story plays out.

Student comes to me day one and tells me he has a hermit crab that he wants to bring as a class pet.

I say okay, as long as I have to do NOTHING. I make it clear that I am not responsible for keeping "Blaze" alive at all.

Student agrees and comes back day two with Blaze the Hermit Crab in an old salad box.

The kids love blaze and we talk about how we will feed Blaze and where he will go on the weekends.

Fast forward to Wednesday and I come in to the room and don't even think about checking on Blaze.

It isn't until I walk by and notice a chunk of his leg(?) not attached to his body.

I ask the student to come over and check if Blazey-boy is okay and he say, "Oh yes. He is fine. Hermit Crabs shed their exoskeleton and so that is normal..." He picks Blaze up and, to my view, Blaze doesn't move a muscle. My eyes must have been deceiving me because my student claims Blaze is alive and well. Alrighty then.

I'm not a science expert, but my knowledge of exoskeletons leads me to believe that was most definitely not an exoskeleton.

Onward and upward, we've got business to attend to, so we let Blaze be.

A very (veryyy) short time later a support teacher comes in my room. She asks about Blaze and I tell her I'm pretty sure he is in Hermit Crab heaven. She goes to check on our pet and by our exchanged looks, we confirm that Blaze's life is most definitely over.

She, not I - because I am not the most sensitive person ever and my response to Blaze's death would have gone something like, "Welp, he's dead. Sure did live a good life. Sorry, man," - broke to news to my students who looksed just devastated.

After a quick Google search we explained that Blaze was doomed from the beginning. Nothing that we were doing met the standards to keep a Hermit Crab alive. "Never drop below 75 degrees" - strike one. "Minimum 70% humidity at all times" - strike two. I think you get the point.

So, after we laid Blaze to rest I made it a point that I think we proved how well we keep animals alive and for the sake of all other living creatures it would be best to keep them out of our class.

Here's to hoping next week is more lively :)