Potty-Training Not a Pre-req?

I'm on a roll tonight, so I'll throw in one more blog entry. I've got to share my latest complaint about Kindergarten: the bathroom. Somehow, in the midst of lesson planning, web quests, curriculum evaluations, and portfolio-creating, my college education failed to acknowledge a significant problem with Kindergartners: their inability to properly use the bathroom.

Now, I realize that this (hopefully) does not apply to teachers in other grades. But I spend a heck of a lot more time dealing with "bathroom issues" during the day than anything else and not once was this covered in my education classes. I feel that you should be warned that you will not have time to implement that creative, wonderful, ingenious lesson plan because you will be too busy cleaning pee off the bathroom floor or calling a custodian to your bathroom for the third time in one day. Seriously...I understand that I work with little children, but is it too much to ask for a day where no one pees on the bathroom floor?

As if dealing with pee on the bathroom floor isn't enough, I've had a repeat offender in the accident department. Unfortunately, he doesn't like to tell me when he's had an accident. I have to sniff him out. And even when asked, he won't admit what's happened. So, I spent a good deal of last week playing "investigator" to determine the "odor-offender" and then determine why he hadn't gone to the bathroom. It's difficult because I don't want to jump on students if there is a medical problem causing these accidents. However, I also don't want students to learn the behavior of waiting until the last minute to go to the bathroom and then having an accident. I seriously think it would have been useful to have a class that prepared you for the best way to discuss "your child's inability to make it through a school day without having a smelly accident" with parents. Alas, that was not offered at my college...

Perhaps one day, when I have exhausted myself as a classroom teacher, and desire to move onto different things, I will petition for more practical classes to be included in a college education. In addition to How-to-tell-a-parent-their-Kindergartner-MUST-be-potty-trained, I would like to see the class How-to-tell-a-parent-their-child-should-not-have-to-wake-them-up-in-order-to-get-to-school-on-time, How-to-find-time-to-teach-around-constant-mandated-assessments, and Be-Your-Own-Psychic: Predict-what-mundane-thing-parents-will-get-mad-at.

All jokes aside, there is quite a lot to be said for experience and the practical knowledge you gain from teaching that you cannot prepare for by reading a book. And while I must occasionally complain about the pitfalls of teaching, there are quite a few rewarding moments as well. All I can say is...by the time I get around to having my own children, I think I will have learned all the ways NOT TO and TO parent...I'll be prepared!