Life Lessons: Pick Your Own Nose

Four years of school, student teaching, internships and still some things com as a surprise. It was the second year of teaching that one of those surprises came along.

I understood that many children pick their nose. Parents always acted shocked when it is their child, but I assume they knew it too. The prospect of some children eating what they pick was disgusting, but again somewhat expected. I could learn to deal with it. I was not prepared for children to pick someone elses' nose and eat it. (Please stay with me, there really is a point to all of this.)

In true teaching form I tried several things to explain personal space and boundaries to the full time kindergarten class.

We pretended that each of us was surrounded by a personal bubble. It was unsuccessful.

The letter home just made several parents angry.

We built small fences, but it only slowed things down a little.

We talked about manners and illness, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally, out of desperation I came up with the box idea. I collected several boxes. I sent notes home and had parents bring in boxes for our latest and greatest art project. I found a refridgerator box for myself.

It took us a couple weeks to get the holes cut out for our heads. Each of us painted and decorated our own boxes. I wanted everyone to like and be excited about the box.

We had the most picking issues during story time. So when story time came along we all put on our boxes and our personal space became something more concrete. Their hands were inside the boxes. My box had a small opening in front so I was able to hold the book, but other than that I had personal space boundaries as well. It worked well during story time.

During the day with other activities I would remind the children to pretend that their box was on and not to get too close. Remember personal spaces need to be respected. After about three weeks I felt like I was making progress and things were going in the right direction.

I was surprised when the school administrator and two policeman knocked on the door during class. You many even say I was concerned. Apparently a parent had called the police and police don't like heard that a teacher is putting children in boxes. We put on our boxes to demonstrate and still the policemen seemed very unimpressed. They made us take our boxes to the dumpster and they filled out a report.

So here's the life lesson for every parent. Please make sure that your child understands that if their nose really needs to be picked - they should do it themselves. If they come home and say the teacher put them in a box - call the teacher before you call the police. Don't go into teaching unless you have a strong stomach.