How to Crush a Child's Spirit: 101

If the Learning Annex ever wants a class called, "How To Crush a Child's Spirit:101", most elementary school teachers would be qualified to teach the class. Not so much because the teachers are squelching their little spirits (though I'm certain it happens unintentionally, more often than we realize), but because we constantly police the little buttheads that say mean things to other kids.

Yesterday at my elementary school we had our Holiday Sing-Along where all the kids pack into the cafeteria and sing songs. The day before the event, a boy in my class slipped a note in my mailbox to ask if he could bring his reindeer hat to school. I told him that he could wear it to the Sing-Along.

The next day he brought his reindeer antler hat with bells to school. When we walked single file down the school hallway, he proudly wore the antlers. A few minutes after we sat down he came to me, no antlers, and said that a girl in our class told him that the hat looked stupid. I felt the heat inside my belly move to my heart and begin fuming out of the top of my head. I was so mad, fightin' mad! But there's just no reasonable justification for beating up a 9-year-old girl when you're 44. So instead, I marched right over to her and said, "Did you say something unkind to James about his hat?" To which she mumbled, "I told him it looked good."

"Really?" I quipped.

Staring at me with wide eyes, she nodded.

"Well, we will sort this out later and I really hope you are being truthful."

I told James that I spoke to the girl and that he should wear the hat because it was FANTASTIC. He shook his head and never put it back on for the rest of the day.

Even though the girl later mumbled the obligatory under-the-breath "sorry" to him, I keep thinking about how James will probably never wear a festive holiday hat again because that mean little girl said something that just ate away a piece of his spirit.

We've all had moments like that, it's just so hard to watch it happen. Mine was when I was about 9 years old also. The prettiest and most popular girl in our church choir turned to me after a rehearsal and said that I sounded awful. I stopped singing in front of people for about 5 or 6 years after that. I was traumatized. Then I got the fever of 70's and 80's rock and I was back in business, despite the opinion of that nasty little church girl.

Kids can be so cruel. I wonder where they learn it?

Reasons Not to Teach First Grade

I never really needed convincing to NOT teach Kindergarten or First Grade. Just thinking about training them to wipe their own noses has always been enough for me to quickly choose an intermediate grade level.

The other night I had the pleasure of spending some time with previous colleagues that now teach K and 1st. After our conversation I can concisely lay out for you the Three Most Important Reasons to NOT Teach Kinder or 1st Grade:

3. Urine
2. Feces
1. Vomit

I know it sounds extreme to mention these unmentionables, but it must be done. For these three reasons ALONE, teachers should be paid better. Many teachers have swapped stories about kids having "accidents" where they pee their pants. But then...Jess told the story about when she was teaching 1st grade in Guatemala and one day a student said he felt sick. She encouraged him to wait until snack time to see if he would feel better, but he didn't. At snack time, she reminded him to eat his apple. Shortly after the apple, as she was starting a lesson, the same boy complained again about his stomach. By now she was starting to feel convinced that he might really be sick.

Just as she started to say, "Maybe you should go to the office and...", he had a projectile vomit - all over her. Of course she had no change of clothes at school, and of course, she rode the bus to her school everyday because she didn't have her own transport. It was a long day that day.

My pal Antonio told the story of the little boy that disrupted the whole class to alert everyone of his need to use the restroom. Luckily many of the Kinder classrooms have a bathroom adjacent to the room, so off went the little guy to do his business, until suddenly the dreaded, "I need help wiping" voice calls from beyond the door.

"You've got to be kidding!" (Antonio managed to keep this in his thought bubble.)

Painfully and reluctantly, out come the rubber gloves with a snap, snap, over each wrist. The rest? Well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

I think the boy's family got a call or note asking (pleading, begging) that they COMPLETELY potty train their son immediately.

Again, teachers are not paid enough for this kinda crap*. If you aren't going to pay these K/1 teachers more, then at least provide them with a hazardous waste suit/uniform. It would certainly make the job more appealing to me.

(*pun intended)