My 8th grade classroom smells like mint gum, and body odor. The gum is not allowed. I am to tell the kids to get rid of it, and then report it into a shared record system that’s stored on the computer. After a certain amount of gum busts, I think the student gets a detention or something along those lines.
There is no rule against body odor. Body odor is allowed in my classroom, and by the end of the day the smell is knock-you-over palpable. So I say nothing about the gum because each shift in a chair, each reach for a book, stapler, or clipboard, each step towards the “complete work box” brings with it a stench followed by a cool minty breeze.
“Mrs. Feyen,” one boy walks up to me while I’m standing at a counter in the back of the room sorting through papers.
“Yes?” I ask and pivot towards him.
“I don’t understand this assignment. You want me to write about something beautiful, but it has to be bad in some way?”
As he asks, I see bright green gum stuck to his bottom teeth. When I was a kid, I was so careful to keep the gum at the roof of my mouth. I could even fold a Fruit Roll-Up so it perfectly fit inconspicuously in my mouth and I could enjoy it from noon until three. My teachers never knew a thing. I am sure of it.
I discuss baffling beauty, Lauren Winner’s book, Wearing God, body odor, and why I don’t follow the “no chewing gum” rule at my school at Relief Journal. (Don’t tell my school.)
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