Unless

I read 'The Lorax' to my class today, as I always do on Earth Day, and, despite my best efforts at keeping it together, I started to get all choked up. I tried taking long pauses and holding the book up in front of my face, but my students are not easily fooled. One called out, "Hey, Mrs. C. is crying!", which began a big discussion about why. The last time they saw me cry was during a reading of 'Martin's Big Words' - I can never get through that one dry-eyed. But I don't usually have any trouble with Dr. Seuss. I guess Al Gore and my environmental footprint are really getting to me lately. So, one of my students suggested that I was sad because truffula trees are extinct now. That comment was greeted with a chorus of,
"This is fiction! Truffula trees aren't real!", to which the extinction theorist replied,
"Maybe truffula trees are fiction, but Mrs. C. might be thinking about how she would feel if maple trees were extinct."
"Or pandas!"
"Or dragonflies!"
This kind of species speculation went on for awhile, and then the discussion turned:
"Maybe Mrs. C. is sad because the Onceler was only thinking about himself, and not about taking care of the environment."

"Mrs. C, did you ever notice how the Onceler is just like a real person? The story seems like it's fiction, but it's just like the real world."

When we got to the last page, the whole class was silent and staring. One lone hand went up.
"Mrs. C. I think we can all be the child in the story. We can make everything better."

Summer vacation may be fantastic, but the most amazing thing about being a teacher is having moments like this.