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As a third grade teacher I had a great respect for textbooks, until one day in January. It was an especially cold, dreary January that year, and I was glad that we would be moving on to the tropics in science. After I had finally managed to get the class to settle down, I told them to turn to page 132 in their science textbooks. I then turned to that page myself and began reading aloud to class. I suddenly stopped midsentence. There on the page, in large beautiful strokes, was a painting of giant pineapple tree.

I stood up and, without a word to my class, marched off to the principal’s office. I burst through the
door and laid the book on her desk, informing her that it was a disgrace to science. I, having grown up in the tropics, knew perfectly well that pineapples did not grow on trees. They grow on the ground. The principal herself was hesitant to believe me. We had to call the governors of both Florida and Hawaii to convince her of the truth about pineapples. After we had managed to do this she was perfectly appalled and insisted we not teach with that textbook.

Three weeks later I was pleased to discover that a new textbook had been ordered. My class was
beginning to fall behind in science and I immediately jumped right in where we had left off. This new book seemed perfectly factual, until I reached the page with a pineapple vine drawn around the border. I had had enough. I set out on a mission to find a science textbook with a properly drawn pineapple plant.

For the next three months I called every science textbook company I could think of. I was in the
newspaper, on radio, on television, and even was the inspiration for a series of protests against low quality education in the States. At the end of the third month I had almost given up.
Then, on the morning of the last week of school, I got a phone call. It was a science textbook company, claiming that they had the correct drawing of a pineapple plant. I got sent an image of their pineapple drawing and was able to confirm that it was correct. I believe I danced my way to work that morning. Finally I had found a textbook with a correct pineapple plant!
I went straight to science that day. I had my class open to page 672 in their new textbooks. There on the page was a beautiful pineapple plant, perfectly placed on the ground. I sighed and gazed upon it
lovingly. After all these months.

I slowly turned to the next page. There, smack dap in the middle of the page, was a detailed drawing of a banana bush. And that is why I have decided to retire.