Rachel in New York City says one of her students proudly presented her with this card, adding, “I think it speaks for itself.”

related: Happy Valentine’s Day to the groaner upstairs

While checking over her 7-year-old daughter’s homework sheet, LeAnn in Iowa found out that last Tuesday was apparently a lesson in buuuuurns.

related post:

My mother’s favorite food 

Jill’s seven-year-old son “made” this for his Dad at school. “We’d like to think the near-complete lack of effort reflects a lack of enthusiasm for school assignments and is not a sign of a profound rift in his relationship with his father,” she says.

“And for the record, my husband is not 20 years old, weights more than 15 pounds and is taller than 2’1″. And he has a job, as a writer. (Which, to be fair, can sure look a lot like “unemployed” sometimes.)

P.S. The bit at the bottom says: “He is special to me but I don’t have a reason.”

related: “Drunk Mommy”

Writes Mrs. McMahon in Melbourne, Australia: “One of the students in my class decided to make a a big card for World Teachers Day and have it signed by all her peers in our grade. When I read this message, I could not stop laughing.”

related: Teacher appreciation letters from first graders

Writes Daniel in Oakland: “I love the tension between the ‘student of the month’ sticker on top and the totally passive-aggressive ‘every child is honored’ sticker below it.”

related: The car you drive can say a lot about you as a person.

As part of a lesson about civic responsibility, many teachers encourage their students to participate in letter-writing campaigns to Congress, the school board, the Mayor, or other public figures. (Thanks to the efforts of second-graders in Mission, Texas, for example, Texans can now proudly refer to tortilla chips and salsa as their official “state snack.”)

Meanwhile, this teacher in Ypsilanti, Michigan enlisted her 18 middle-school students in a cause even closer to home — her home, that is — by getting them each to write a persuasive letter asking her noisy neighbor to curb his all-night partying.

related: An indignant middle-schooler speaks up

J.T. got a kick out of this permission slip, which his co-worker had to sign before her 17-year-old son was allowed to go the first high school dance of the year. (Apparently “leave room for Jesus” just doesn’t cover it these days.)

I’m loving the concept of “dance detention,” but the name of the high school is really the cherry on top.

related: You looking pretty is clearly more important than our friendship!

extra credit: The world’s largest dance detention performance [youtube]

Writes Roxanne in New Jersey: “When my niece, Diana, returned from a yearbook-signing party, she showed me this inscription from a girl who Diana says she hardly even knows. We’re both dying to know what those terrible warnings about her could have been (but of course, grateful that Leah apparently gave her a chance in spite of them.)”

related: 2good 2be 4gotten

I happen to have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it kills me when they say things like, “Oh, I confiscated the funniest passive-aggressive note today from a kid in my class. I wish I could give it to you, but I don’t want to lose my job.” (Of course, given the state of education funding in Texas, that’s not mere paranoia talking.)

Luckily, there are enough self-aware parents out there like Carmen (a.k.a. “drunk mommy”) to fill the kids say the dardnest fuckin’ shit category of notes that some of you love and some of you can’t stand.

One of those parents is Sheila in Indiana. Her first grader, Andrew, “has had a rough year,” Sheila says, “and is in trouble for talking too much every single day.” When she gave him a card to sign for Teacher Appreciation Day, this is what he wrote.

Meanwhile, Jessie in Utah says that for teacher appreciation day at her first grader’s school, the kids were all asked to write something they appreciated about their teacher on paper butterflies displayed on the door and wall outside the classroom. The anonymous nature of the project seems to have yielded mixed results.

To wrap things up, I just had to pull out this first grader’s letter from the archives. (And no, like many notes on this site, it isn’t passive-aggressive — or even mean-spirited — just adorably bizarre.)

related: (Not) so nice, (Not) so smart

When my younger brother Danny was around 6 or 7, I remember he brought home a project he’d done in school — a little book entitled “My Family,” or something like that. I don’t recall what he said about the rest of us, but on the page about our mother, he had written: “MOM BRINGS DINNER,” complete with a stick-figure drawing of her with McDonald’s bags in both hands. We all laughed about it, but I think my mother was still pretty mortified —  and god only knows what his teacher thought.

Well, Mom, allow me to introduce you to Carmen: you two might be able to commiserate. When her son (who is, coincidentally, also named Daniel) was 6, his first grade teacher had the kids write little journal entries about their weekends every Monday. This was Daniel’s. (The teacher’s feedback is my favorite part.)

Carmen is quick to add that she was most definitely not “drunk” — in fact, on this particular occasion, she hadn’t had a single alcoholic beverage. But just try explaining that to the school guidance counselor…

related: Just in case you haven’t gotten your fix of working mom guilt…your kid’s preschool teacher is ready to step up!

extra credit: Red Party Cups for Classy Moms