For Teachers, Principals and Parents:

You might wonder, “Why would a former teacher write about farts? After all, she went to Harvard! Didn’t they teach her anything there!?!”

Well, kids wonder. They wonder about most everything. That’s why kids say “Why does…?” and “Why do…?” so much more than adults. They’re curious. They want to take the world apart and see how it works.

Their curiosity is a good thing. We should protect it. It’s why first graders are so excited to go to school; it’s fun for them to learn. And if they like learning, they’ll learn well.

But kids can also learn things that don’t serve them. They can learn to be ashamed. Kids watch us closely. They take their cues from us. If they see that we’re ashamed of something normal, something that everyone does, they will follow our lead. They will learn shame.

And if they hear us say, “We don’t talk about farting here,” they will talk about farting over there.

Away from us. And it won’t be pretty.

Then farting will become taboo…and taboo topics have great power over us. Something will mean much more than it should.

So when a second grader asked me what would happen if everyone and everything farted at once, I made it just another moment. We had a laugh and we moved on.