Everybody's Doing It

Before I had my own classroom, I knew that teaching was hard, and that I wouldn’t make a lot of money. I had heard of violent students, students who could make their nose bleed on command, and students who knew and shouted words that I hadn’t even heard of until college. And when I was hired as a 1^st grade teacher, I braced myself for a year filled with all kind of bodily fluids—blood, spit, snot, vomit, urine. But the thing that no one ever mentioned or prepared me for was how often I would have to deal with, well, poop.

Yes, I have poop on the brain. The following conversation is one that I had with a student yesterday, after he returned from the little boy’s room.

“Are you feeling better?”

“No. My tummy still really hurts. And it had red in it.”

“What had red in it?”

“It.”

“What it? Did you go number one or number two?”

“What?”

“Number one or number two?”

“Huh?”

“Did you go pee or poop?”

“Oh. Poop. I had diarrhea.”

So as you can see, trying to gloss over bodily functions with juvenile euphemisms doesn’t really work when having a conversation with a juvenile. Eventually we got the problem sorted out, and he went home early. Unfortunately it led to a follow up conversation today in which he informed me that it hurts whenever he has diarrhea, and that he gets diarrhea when he doesn’t eat good foods.

As you may have guessed from reading that heartwarming scenario, working with first graders has really redefined my opinion of what qualifies as too much information. One of my favorite stories from my second year of teaching also deals with an unabashed willingness to talk about the need to defecate. One of my students, who a colleague so aptly described as looking rather like Suffleupagus, was notorious for being a little light on the marbles. He would wander about my room during lessons with a dreamy look on his face and cartwheel down the hall to the cafeteria. He was cute, but flighty. Once he came back from the bathroom during rug time, sat down, and immediately raised his hand to go to the bathroom again. Thinking that it was a ploy to get out of working, I denied his request. Without a trace of shame and in a voice clear enough for everyone to hear he announced, quite factually, “But I have to go poop.”

While some first graders seem very open about their bowel movements, others seem to trend the other way. While my poop story from last year was hilarious, a fellow first grade teacher encountered a much more distressing scenario. Her room had been smelling odd for several days, so while the children were out at recess, she took the opportunity to search their desks for a spoiled snack or something of the kind. Unfortunately, what rolled out of one child’s desk was human excrement. Upon questioning the culprit, it was discovered that he had had an accident on the playground. The poop had rolled out of his pants and, choosing not to simply walk away or kick it into the bushes, he picked it up, put it in his pocket, and carried it back into the school. Then, in lieu of flushing it down a toilet or throwing it in a trashcan, he decided to hide it in his desk. Isn’t that what you would do?

Now you might be arguing that these were all stories of normal bodily functions that were linked to a lack of social awareness. However, I have also known a child who purposefully used fecal matter as a way to manipulate me. After an accident that involved wetting his pants and going home early, a student decided that wetting his pants was actually a good thing. When grandma found out that he had started deliberately wetting his pants to go home, she threatened punishment. Undaunted, he stopped wetting his pants, but would come back from the bathroom telling me that he had missed the toilet. Because I am a very savvy teacher, I could deduce from a quick glance that he was lying. Unwilling to give up so easily, the child decided that it would be best to deliberately defecate in his pants. Unable to easily ascertain whether or not his claims were true, the office had to call grandma. I don’t know what the punishment at home turned out to be, but it must have been stringent. He didn’t have bathroom problems for the rest of the year.

Yes, it is true. Everybody poops. But first graders take it to a whole new level.

The Gauntlet

I have to take a test this weekend to update my teaching license, and it happens to be standardized. I haven’t taken a standardized test in ages. In fact, the last time I took a standardized test I couldn’t drink alcohol or rent a van, and I was only just old enough to vote. So maybe you can see why, eight years later, I am feeling just a bit apprehensive about this shindig.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t forgotten how to bubble in answers, and I guess college prepared me well enough to take timed essay tests, but even that was three years ago. Besides, one of the perks of attending a liberal arts college is also a drawback. Whereas my professors often rewarded me for thinking creatively and, to be frank, fudging my way through essays, standardized tests have . . . standards. Points are only awarded if I mention such and such theory and its corresponding theorist. I’m not prepared for this.

Which leads my rambling mind to another thought. I may never be able to go to grad school. This simple little, not-so-very-frightening test is keeping me up at nights and, I suspect, giving me an ulcer. Now, the GRE—which I previously thought a reasonable task—seems like a medieval gauntlet.

I’d blame all of this on my natural anxiety, but I have it under control. Really. Those little pills I take nightly are miraculous. It’s been months since I checked the oven ten times to make sure it was off before leaving the house, and I can’t remember the last time I drove back down a street just to make sure the speed bump I hit wasn’t really a person. So if it’s not ludicrous anxiety, what is it? An old fashioned fear of failure? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just too used to giving tests instead of taking them. I did become a teacher in order to transfer my residual worry to others, don’t you know. Karma sure does stink.

Priorities

I hate Charlie Sheen. He’s a chauvinistic, arrogant, vile little . . . oh wait. I COULD CARE LESS.

Charlie Sheen is one of the millions of people in the world who have made some really, really terrible choices. Yes, he’s a movie star and has therefore has given people permission to scrutinize his life. That doesn’t mean he deserves our scrutiny.

Let me be clear. I am not arguing that Charlie Sheen deserves privacy. I am arguing that in the entire span of world history, he’s not even a blip. Yes, I believe everyone has value as a person, but not everyone is newsworthy. The fact that almost every major news network including CNN has resorted to tabloid-style exclusive interviews and gossip is low, even for news networks.

True, our system of receiving news has been broken for a long time. Newscasters who have no qualifications other than a loud voice and—if they’re a woman—a pretty face, research teams who cut and paste from a single source, and editors who trim and splice to meet their agenda are among the most egregious of transgressions.

But when protests and violence are raging in Africa and the Middle East, when the rights of civil servants are being threatened in our own country, when Congress is on the brink of a standstill due to partisan arrogance, why is our populace worried about the personal life of a man who, though admittedly gross, pales in comparison to some of the drugged-out, child abusers that I have personally met?

Priorities, people.