Posted on 11/26/2013 5:28:22 PM PST by FLAMING DEATH
“He said it was typical of a particular European immigrant race.”
I heard the same thing many, many years ago. I think I know the “immigrant race” of which you speak, as that was the ethnicity I had heard about. Can’t really blame the kids, though, for the uncleanliness of their parents.
It's sad that kids have to live this way. It's sadder that in Obama's America it's not likely to get any better.
First thing I thought of!
That would make a great bumper sticker, T-shirt or message to just pass around. I'm sure that there are more than a few "lazy" poor who would find that offensive.
I have several friends who came from India. They would marvel at the people here, and say "We lived in squalor, my parents both were born in a hut with a dirt floor, but you know what they did? They would gather grass and fashion a broom, and they would sweep their dirt-floor homes out. They may be poor, but they were never "dirty"".
“Her way of dealing with it was to inform the school nurse who would then speak with the parents.”
It seems to me that it is better to deal with this on a one to one basis.
I grew up in NYC and went to both public and parochial schools on the east side of Manhattan, my classmates included both some very wealthy and some very poor children. (This was one thing that was great about NYC back then.)
I don’t remember anyone being unclean.
I never met a greaser who had grease on him. I also remember, back in 1960, after gym class, when we were all sweaty, the white kids would rater take a beating than shower in the COLD water. The Spanish kids grabbed soap, jumped in and washed down completely. I always respected them for that.
I’ve had a few kids like this in my 19 years of teaching.
One was so bad that my co-workers and I went to the dollar store and bought some sweatpants and socks for him. The nurse would meet him at the door and direct him discreetly to the showers in the locker room. During the day, the nurse would wash his clothes, and at the end of the day, she would call him to her office where he’d go in the back and change into his now clean clothes. If he came in smelling bad the next day, we’d do the same thing.
His parents knew about it, but the boy continued to come to school dirty until the end of the year.
===I think I know the “immigrant race” ===
I did not say because times and cultures change. The important thing is that is was clearly the culture of a very particular race. That race now has hygiene within the norms of American culture. If they were still filthy, I’d say who they were.
In my youth, on the high plains and Ozarks, there were certain smells which stick with you.
An acrid smell in the homes of the poor. A strange smell on the kids in class.
years later, I found out what it was.
The poor homes had an acrid smell because the man of the family, at night went out and pee’d on the woodpile. I learned this from a Jack O’Connor story of his youth and suddenly I realized that is the smell I smelled so much in the homes of poor people.
When I first saw the movie SARGENT YORK, I felt I could almost smell what the inside of his home looked like. The smell began to go away as indoor plumbing came into fashion.
As for the smell of the kids at school, one day I opened up a box in which I had stored my smokey hunting clothes. The smell of smoke hit me and I immediately got a flashback to my youth when the kids around me in the Ozarks had the same smell on them from leaky stoves.
Then there are the kids who smelt of hog farms or chicken farms. Even a bath won’t get that out. Only by staying away from such places and waiting till the outer layer of skin falls away will that smell disappear.
My school had a slightly different approach. Teachers brought in used clothes from their own households, and the garments were stored in an old unused closet. There was always a huge variety of jeans/t-shirts for both boys and girls.
When a kid came in fi9lthy, and needed clean clothes, the custodian would let the kid shower in his mop washing stall.
This was done without any fanfare and it got the job done.
More and more, schools are expected to do the job of the parent. Sad but true.
I won’t even raise the issue of kids coming to school not having winter coats come December.
“It seems to me that it is better to deal with this on a one to one basis.”.
There are some parents who absolutely will not listen to anyone and are offended at the suggestion that they should take some responsibility for their children.
On the other hand, a blanket letter to all students doesn’t call anyone out directly...the parents who are “reachable” will take action. The ones who aren’t will simply refuse to believe that they have a problem.
The big problem I see with this is that the lady was somewhat less than professional in the way she wrote the letter. Saying the stench makes her not want to work with them or touch them is a bit much. So is the snarky, “Enough said.” at the end. And requiring a signature is a bit over the top, too. Even the parents of the clean kids have to sign it and return it, and it seems like a brow-beating.
A nicely worded professional letter WITHOUT a signature requirement, with a follow up from the school nurse for any who didn’t get the message would probably have been the best route.
Although, having had to deal with such odors on a daily basis before, at times, you’ll do almost anything to try to make it stop...
Indeed. Mrs. 40 taught kindergarten and some of her students, though age 5, were still not potty trained. How does a parent send their child to school at age 5 w/o first potty training them? Many of these kids suffered extreme embarrassment by being known as one who still craps themselves. I always feared for my wife who had to take these kids to the restroom. I feared the day would come when some screwed up kid would attempt to punish her for something, anything, by claiming she made inappropriate contact. It was not her job to take kids to the restroom. I finally convinced her to take or send them to the nurse which she did.
It's a parent's job to potty train their child, not that of the kindergarten teacher.
It was a never-ending battle...Mrs 40 has my complete understanding.
If her school was anything like ours, it didn’t even provide the disposable gloves to do the deed.
Kids were *never* kept home if they had a cold/flu .....lice season in the classroom in May-June was a lovely event that lasted until school dismissed for the summer.
Our school nurse was a complete waste of oxygen...she wouldn’t do her job, but b/c she was of the right *color* she retained her position.
*Sigh*
You have my sympathy. The school nurse was invaluable to my wife and the challenges she faced. Without her help who knows.
I can remember back 30 years ago, in Elementary school, kids being talked to and even sent home if they came to school dirty or poorly dressed.
School wasn’t playtime. You showed up looking fairly neat and presentable and there were some strict-ish clothing guidelines you were too follow.
Urban schools in CT are full of administrators who are prime examples of the negative impact of affirmative action.
Laundry soap is cheapish, true.
But ...
Get this - because of gross mismanagement, our municipal water bills are now over $200 a month for a family of five. I have a high-efficiency washer, and we all don’t shower every day by a long shot since my kids aren’t teens.
We can stay mostly clean, but what if our health care bill soars several hundred more? We’re probably going to be smelly soon or collect rainwater (if it’s not illegal by then).
Perfectly good deodorant soap bars are 5 for $2.75 at the dollar store.That same mount will buy liquid soap for washing 32 loads of clothes.$2 more for a box of generic bleach powderNo reason to be dirty.Soap that doesn’t sponsor TV shows is cheap ad effective.
m
It may shock some people but 20 or more gallons of hot water is not needs to wash one human daily.ONE gallon will suffice.You begin by shampooing the hair and not using an excess of shampoo.Then. way the face and work your way to the feet possibly doing the waist area last.Towel off .You are now clean.
I think many posters and obviously the School Board missed the main point in this story.
It is that the School Board didn’t give a flying crap about the health and sanitary conditions of their students, only that someone pointed it out semi-publicly.
If we had more teachers who were that concerned about the welfare of their students, as opposed to School Boards that are Politically Correct assholes, our children might actually learn something in school and at home (such as how to live as a dignified, self-respecting person, and why their parents are such dumb, lazy shits).
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