A marigold by any other name

It was carried home on the last day of school with all the careful energy a 6-year-old can muster. It didn’t look like much at first glance: a basic yellow plastic cup, filled to the brim with smooth black dirt. His kindergarten teacher pulled me aside and pointed to the cup. “We had a little problem with that one,” she confessed. “It spilled over today, and we did our best to get the dirt and…