This incident actually took place last year but I was way too distraught
to even consider writing about it.
Here is how this crazy story all began… At the beginning of last school
year, my colleague and I crafted this beautiful paper tree as one of the focal
points of my classroom décor. It took a little under four hours to complete and
was relatively easy to construct.
The tree was made around an existing pipe in my classroom and used a
number of recycled and low cost materials.
The completed tree was striking in person.
However, my beautiful tree’s life was cut way too short.
One day while teaching, my students and I heard a loud scream from the
hallway. It was our PE teacher, who only seconds later came running into our
classroom, he quickly motioned for us to all get out of the classroom.
What we did not realize was that a squirrel, yes you read that right; a
squirrel had made its way into our school and somehow meandered his way to the
second floor and into our classroom. A classroom with 30 squirming children and
the same classroom with a beautiful paper tree placed conveniently in the
corner.
I am pretty sure you can imagine what happened next, however in this
case reality might in fact be stranger than fiction. The children and I were rushed
out of the room, ushered into a ‘holding cell’, the police were called, and
somehow the squirrel tried to climb the tree to avoid his arrest and sadly
things went south.
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| The scene after I cleaned up the tree limbs. |
 |
| The Aftermath |
It was a really dramatic experience; the tree was destroyed, I cried
like a baby (I am really not that sensitive.. I promise), and it took me MONTHS
to even think about putting it back together.
And that is the story of SquirrelGate 2016. :(
