I Didn’t Save Any Crabs Today. Do I Suck?
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Buddy Boy took us to the beach a couple of weeks ago. It was the last week of school in our district, so the beach was a seething mass of field-tripping third graders.
We worried a little about the babies around all those kids, but they were fantastically careful. The big kids, in fact, showed a lot more class than the 20-something dudes who ambled down with a bag filled with shore crabs — probably a hundred, all told — and dumped them on the beach. They claimed they’d been having crab races. It’s a national park, that beach, so, for the record:
- Crab torture is way illegal.
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- Not to mention stupid and cruel.
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- And probably a predictor of future sociopathic behavior.
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- But I digress.
Anyway, as you’ll remember, I’m a naturalist. Teaching kids how to appreciate nature appropriately is my spec-i-al-i-ty. And here were a bunch of kids, a bag full of stunned shore crabs, and an off duty naturalist. You’d think I would’ve done something about it, wouldn’t you?
But I didn’t.
I did shovel some of the crabs back into the rocks. And pick one of the hardier looking ones for Boobaby and Buddy Boy to hold, briefly. But, apart from that, I didn’t do any teaching.
At the time, I told myself that I was spending a relaxing day with my family and friends, so it was OK that I didn’t take advantage of the “teachable moment.” I wonder if that’s really it, though. Only lately, I’ve felt really shy about practicing my former profession: teaching.
And shy is one thing that no teacher can afford to be.