More Substitute Tales or Let Them Eat Cheetos!

This past week I found myself back subbing in the classroom where all the kids sit on large bouncing balls rather than chairs.  I was better at tolerating a bit of bouncing this time and yes, I do understand the ergonomic benefit of sitting on these balls, difficult though it is to teach a group of constantly-bouncing 5th graders.  I immediately told the students the balls were great but excessive bouncing during a lesson would mean they sat on the floor.  Of course this led to arguments as to what constituted excessive bouncing.  I said I would decide what excessive bouncing was, not them.

This ultimatum did not go over well, as you can imagine, and some of the hard-core bouncers continued to bounce wildly and were thus instructed to sit on the floor.  After an argumentative stretch that went on far too long, I was able to get the morning lessons off and running.  About 10 minutes into the math lesson, several students opened their desks and took out snacks they had stashed away.  I immediately asked them to put the snacks away until snack time and they informed me that their teacher lets them eat snacks in the classroom whenever they wish.  The students were surprised that I did not know that snacking whenever they chose to do so was now considered healthy.  Their regular teacher had been enlightened about this, so where had I been, living under a rock?   I said I found the ripping open of snack packages a distraction, but continued with the lesson feeling like I was already coming off as Attila the Hun and it was probably best to pick my battles.

During an independent reading block, one of the students came to the desk to ask me the meaning of a word in his textbook and his fingers were coated with Cheetos dust.  I told him that getting that stuff all over the textbook was not a good idea and he should go and wash his hands.  He looked at me like the thought of such a thing had never crossed his mind.  Later in the day, the teacher's plan instructed me to read a chapter from the class novel to the students.  I began the chapter and once again students were opening their desks and pulling out the snacks.  I lost my patience and told them I refused to read aloud under these ripping and crunching conditions.

Snacking is a way of life in our culture, and we have the rise in the obesity rate and now in the cavity rate to prove it.  In the other, not so wealthy, school district I sub in, the elementary students also have snack time during the school day.  In this district, however, the snack time is its own brief 10-minute time slot and it is not during academic time.  I have found that many of the teachers in this district insist that students eat only fruit or veggies or yogurt at snack time.  It takes some monitoring to enforce this rule because students will try to sneak in junk food that parents let them bring to school.  It's easier to just let them eat Cheetos, and in the wealthier of the two school districts, if you told students they could only have healthy snacks you would probably have parents calling and complaining in droves.

I often download the New York Times on my Kindle on Tuesdays to read the once-a-week section of science articles.  I did so during my prep time on the day I subbed in the bouncing/ snacking classroom.  This week, one of the articles, cited below, was entitled: Rise in Preschool Cavities Prompts Anesthesia Use.  The story begins with a two-and-a-half-year-old Seattle child undergoing surgery because 11 out of his 20 baby teeth had cavities.  Two teeth had to be extracted and the child needed a root canal and crowns.   Dentists are finding nowadays that pre-schoolers with multiple cavities are not unusual.  Constant snacking and drinking of juice at this age is encouraged and/or tolerated by parents and by our culture these days, and it is one of the major factors in early tooth decay.  Another factor, according to dentists, is that parents give up on brushing teeth because their children don't like it and battling with them is too much effort.  Easier, I guess, to have the child experience oral surgery.

I doubt whether I will choose to sub again in the bouncing/snacking classroom (not that they would want me to crawl out from under my rock anyway).   In another 5th-grade classroom this week, two fifth-grade girls came up to me and asked if they could tell me something.  They looked embarrassed and had to whisper.  They said they like me as their sub because I was strict and was not afraid to say no.  WOW!  Maybe we are making a mistake thinking we do kids a favor by giving them endless choices that lead to endless arguments and power struggles.   I find that children today can argue brilliantly about why they should get their way, and not just when the issues are snacking or brushing teeth.  Many of them are used to getting their way.  Sometimes it is almost as if students seem relieved when you do limit the choices and when you say no.  At home they run the show, and that is too much to ask from children.  

Call me old fashioned, but feeling hungry at meal time because mom/dad said no to snacking and being made to brush your teeth early in life is not child abuse.  It's called parenting.  Listening to your teacher read you a good story without the benefit of a snack is not punitive, it may be good teaching.




http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/health/rise-in-preschool-cavities-prompts-anesthesia-use.html?emc=eta1