Petri Dish.

This is an accurate description of my classroom given to me by a nurse.  Really, it is.  I went almost 8 years without a case of strep throat and then I started teaching, and now I get it just about every winter.  It’s making the rounds in my classroom right now.  So far it’s missed me.  I’d like it to stay that way.  So I’m addicted to hand sanitizer and hand washing.  Which means my hands are chapped and raw, and I really wish I could just keep them in a vat of moisturizer. 

I feel so bad for my students.  Their noses run, they cough, they sneeze and get earaches.  They get the pukes, pink eye, strep and fevers.  Usually they come back in a couple of days or maybe a week, only to catch something new.  I feel terrible for the parents who catch what their children bring home.  Now that my kids are older, they don’t catch every little thing, which is good, and that should mean that I wouldn’t catch everything, but I choose to work in a petri dish.  (So now I’ve had a cold and a stomach thing in the last 10 days.)

So as we continue through cold/flu/stomach bug season, I’ll keep washing/sanitizing my hands.  I’ll keep teaching the kids to wash their hands, telling them not to eat the play-dough, and to keep their boogers to themselves.  We make new play-dough and we sanitize the toys.  Of course, I’ll try not to wince when those sticky little fingers touch my face or if I get caught in the middle of their sneezes.  I’ll try not to be a germ-a-phobe, but I tell you it’s really difficult.

Yes, preschoolers grow in many ways.  Socially, emotionally, academically, physically.  I like to nurture these growths.  I do NOT like to cultivate the germs, but apparently our setting is perfect for growing them.  I guess I should look at it as just weeds in my little garden.

Or maybe I truly do work in a petri dish.

Life Lesson: Wash your hands!  Really well.  And maybe, just maybe you won’t catch what’s growing in your petri dish.

Mrs. V