Field Hockey in Flippers or Why Fourth Grade Should Be Banned

I don't despise kids. Really. I recognize that I was one once and chances are I was just as bizarre, creepy, and attention-deprived as today's variety. And honestly, one at a time they'd probably be tolerable, if not even fun. But 29? on a 50-foot boat? I'm amazed I haven't given over to alien invasion theories and aluminium foil hats.

Consider this group discussion, which occupied most of a water quality lesson--a typically interesting, fun chance for the kids to do some real science experiments and test qualities such as salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen content, and temperature.

"Why do we care about the quality of the water?"

"Because we go swimming in it."

"We do. What else swims in water?"

"My mom, and my dad swim."

"I mean aside from humans."

"My dog goes swimming sometimes, its pretty funny--one time my dog fell in the pool and he just stayed there so we played with him but then my mom yelled at us because she didn't want dog hair in the filter so we had to get him out and he didn't want to get out."

"Okay, well, what's something that Lives in the water?"

"My hamster sat in his water dish the other day."

"But does your hamster live in the water?"

"No, but he sat in it!"

"Well who can think of something that lives in the water?"

silence.

"Do Fish live in the water?"

"Well some fish...no?"

"Yes! Fish do live in the water. Do we want the fish to be healthy while they live in the water?"

"Yeah, probably."

And so forth. By the end I was happy to just get them to accomplish a salinity test, which involves putting a drop of water on a refractometer and looking through it. somehow they botched the pH test so thoroughly that it was coming up at about a 6, or the same acidity as coffee, and I didn't even bother trying to explain dissolved oxygen beyond "What do humans breathe in?" "Air." "What's the big important element of air that we breathe?" "Um, nitrogen?" "well, we do breathe a lot of nitrogen, but what do we need to survive?" "Food?" "oh good god."

The odd thing is, many of my girl scouts the other weekend were fourth graders, and they picked up on prompts like i was handing them cookies. I don't know what the deal was with these kids, but if it was able to be screwed up, they managed to find it.

Then a crewmember on another boat fell overboard.

Then we discovered that that boat had some pretty hefty damage to its hull and has to be hauled out, throwing everything off for quite some time.

I'm going to bed before today becomes tomorrow and it carries over somehow.