A monumentous occasion
SO, it finally happened. After almost 3 months of teaching kindergarten in Seoul, one of my students peed her pants in my class.
Backstory on bathroom breaks-- In my class of 5 year olds (so really, they are like 3 and 4 years old), certain kids ask to go to the bathroom every time I set foot in the classroom. I'm sure you know, we've all tried it, to get out of a boring lecture or as an escape (why they'd want to miss even a minute of my stimulating class, I'll never understand).
When they do actually go to the bathroom (as a group), it's like a ten-fifteen minute ordeal. First, they have to line up. This alone is a challenge. Trying to direct 11 ADD Korean 4 year olds to get into a straight line without hitting each other or eating crayons is a real task. So then, we walk to the bathroom where the boys split off from the girls and end up locking themselves into the stalls in pairs and all you can hear is giggling and little voices speaking in Korean. After much prodding from the mean American teacher (aka, Shemen teacher), they exit the stalls and get up on little stools in front of the sinks where instead of actually washing their hands, they think it's a great idea to splash around and get soaked. So needless to say I usually don't take them to the bathroom when I am teaching (the Korean teachers have more control over the students).
So, as I mentioned before, I'll get the random student asking me once in awhile to go to the bathroom by themself during class. It's always a risk to let the 3-4 year old child go to the bathroom alone. They may never return. So when this little girl asked me to go, I said no (thinking that she really didn't have to go). If the child asks me more than once, usually I'll let them go. Because they have attention spans the size of gnats, I figure if they remember that they have to go to the bathroom 5 minutes later, they must really have to go.
Anyway, the pee-er's name is Pink. She's a little slow. She's very sweet and everything, but a coworker and I think she's on drugs. She is off in her own little world more times than I can count and is the type to stare off into space and you can just tell she's thinking "look at all the pretty colors........."
So she asked me once to go (which I denied), and then the next thing I know she has her hand raised and I go over to her (forgetting all about the fact that she asked to go to the bathroom) and there was PEE all over the floor and chair. We were making construction paper crowns that day so there was some pieces of construction paper laying in it too. Nice touch. So I immediately remove her from the classroom and tell my supervisor what has happened. Everything got cleaned up rather quickly and Pink was given new pants...but I couldn't stop laughing.
When you've gotta go....
Backstory on bathroom breaks-- In my class of 5 year olds (so really, they are like 3 and 4 years old), certain kids ask to go to the bathroom every time I set foot in the classroom. I'm sure you know, we've all tried it, to get out of a boring lecture or as an escape (why they'd want to miss even a minute of my stimulating class, I'll never understand).
When they do actually go to the bathroom (as a group), it's like a ten-fifteen minute ordeal. First, they have to line up. This alone is a challenge. Trying to direct 11 ADD Korean 4 year olds to get into a straight line without hitting each other or eating crayons is a real task. So then, we walk to the bathroom where the boys split off from the girls and end up locking themselves into the stalls in pairs and all you can hear is giggling and little voices speaking in Korean. After much prodding from the mean American teacher (aka, Shemen teacher), they exit the stalls and get up on little stools in front of the sinks where instead of actually washing their hands, they think it's a great idea to splash around and get soaked. So needless to say I usually don't take them to the bathroom when I am teaching (the Korean teachers have more control over the students).
So, as I mentioned before, I'll get the random student asking me once in awhile to go to the bathroom by themself during class. It's always a risk to let the 3-4 year old child go to the bathroom alone. They may never return. So when this little girl asked me to go, I said no (thinking that she really didn't have to go). If the child asks me more than once, usually I'll let them go. Because they have attention spans the size of gnats, I figure if they remember that they have to go to the bathroom 5 minutes later, they must really have to go.
Anyway, the pee-er's name is Pink. She's a little slow. She's very sweet and everything, but a coworker and I think she's on drugs. She is off in her own little world more times than I can count and is the type to stare off into space and you can just tell she's thinking "look at all the pretty colors........."
So she asked me once to go (which I denied), and then the next thing I know she has her hand raised and I go over to her (forgetting all about the fact that she asked to go to the bathroom) and there was PEE all over the floor and chair. We were making construction paper crowns that day so there was some pieces of construction paper laying in it too. Nice touch. So I immediately remove her from the classroom and tell my supervisor what has happened. Everything got cleaned up rather quickly and Pink was given new pants...but I couldn't stop laughing.
When you've gotta go....
posted by Shannon at 10:09 PM
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