I love my job. Working with children means that no two days are ever the same. The kids amuse and entertain me on a daily basis. Part of my job is serving as the faculty sponsor of our elementary school’s literary magazine. Fourth and fifth graders are the “staff,” and for each issue they submit surveys, interviews, book reviews, etc. to go along with the stories, essays and poems written by the other children. This past week I learned that we need to be careful about what we select as a survey question.

A fifth grader asked a class the question: “What was your most embarrassing moment?” There were lots of funny answers. Many will be in the magazine. Some of them, though, will never make it to the magazine. Since I am the final editor, I make the decision of what goes in and what’s left out of the magazine. And I believe that some words and topics simply don’t belong in an elementary school’s “literary” magazine. Here’s a sampling of embarrassing moments we won’t use:

“The most embarrassing thing that happened to me was at a shooting party. The cops boxed us in and told us to put our hands up and one of the toughest men looked as scared as could be. Me and Max threw our toy guns and were so scared we scooted back behind everyone. It was a mistake in the end.”

Cops? Guns? A shooting party? Is this a game? A fourth grader wrote this! What’s going on?

Then there was Hooters. I’ve been to Hooters. The food was ho-hum at best, and since I get no thrill from seeing women in skimpy outfits, a return visit isn’t in my future. However, this week I learned that Hooters apparently is not just for adults:

“We went to Hooters and my dad did a very funny dance with balloons tied to his pants.”

Balloons tied to his pants? Well, yes, it probably WAS funny. But at Hooters with elementary school kids as an audience? I’m not sure that was the best parental decision. Here’s another Hooter’s experience:

“Last year my brother had to have his birthday at Hooters. So that night they had him stand on a bar stool and sang happy birthday to him. Then when he got off the bar stool, he fell down. Then when we ate chicken wings, he got stuff all over his face.”

That’s benign enough, but I just don’t want to have Hooters and bar stools mentioned in the school’s literary magazine. Apparently Hooters isn’t the only restaurant where embarrassing moments occur:

“We went to Joe’s Crab Shack because it was my brother’s birthday. He had to do the hula hoop. He tried to do it, but he spinned it and it went right down. They gave him another try and it went down, but he was still shaking his hips. His girlfriend was watching him.”

Nah - I also don’t want a story of an older brother shaking his hips while his girlfriend watches.

Parents are prominent figures in a few embarrassing moments:

“When my dad took off his shirt in front of my friends.”

“My mom was going to buy underwear for me and my sister, and she asked my sister and I what size we wear. OUT LOUD!”

“On my birthday, I turned on music and my mom started dancing. She ripped her pants.”

Peeing was the prevailing theme of some embarrassing moments as well:

“I had to go to the restroom, and I peed in my pants.”

“I was sitting on the couch and my mom had just mopped the floor. Dad scared me, and I almost peed my pants.”

“It all happened when my mom was pregnant with me. We were going on a vacation and my mom had to go to the bathroom. My sister was sitting in the back, and all of a sudden she threw up on my dad. And I was kicking my mom, and she was laughing so hard that she peed on herself.”

That’s what she gets for laughing at the poor man with upchuck all over him!

Then there were the to-be-expected burping, pants-falling-down, and farting stories:

“The funniest thing that ever happened to me was when I burped really loud at the dinner table and everyone laughed. After all the other burps I did the loudest burp ever. Then everyone fell out of their seats and laughed their hearts out.”

“When my pants fell down in second grade.”

“One night we were watching TV downstairs. I was sitting on my basketball and I farted. I yelled, ‘Duck and cover!’ and I farted again. I said something else and I farted. I did that all night.”

Sounds like a charming family evening at home, doesn’t it? We had a dog once who did that all the time. Well, he didn’t yell “Duck and cover,” but a warning would have been nice.

And finally there are stories that leave me puzzled - What the . . ? Just read this last one.

“One time when I was 8 or 9 and I was on a campout and I was sleeping in a trailer. I woke up and my pants were nowhere to be found. I was looking everywhere before anyone woke up. So I went quietly to my mom and dad’s room, and I found my bag and I took out some more pants. I was lucky.”

His PANTS disappeared? That’s seems very strange to me - and NOT at all very lucky.

So next week the literary magazine will be published and distributed to all the children - pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. But it won’t have any peeing, shooting party, balloon-wearing, pants losing, hips shaking, or “duck and cover!” stories in it. Honestly, though, more kids would read it if it did.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 7th, 2006 at 10:41 am and is filed under Teaching/Education, That's My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.