Let's be honest....

Children are wonderfully, beautifully, BRUTALLY honest.

So I'm student teaching and this semester I'm working with kindergarteners. I was teaching a lesson in a different classroom than I normally work in so the teacher in that class could work on assessments. While I was walking around the classroom there was one section where the tables were really close and the students were sitting on the edges of their chairs making it impossible to pass through (adult or child). I told the students to move their chairs in and I made the comment that my bottom was too big to fit through. One student looked at me and said, "That's because you're really fat." It wasn't meant to be mean, it was just stating the obvious. As a side note, there IS a student in that class that would have said it to be mean but this wasn't that student. I had sent him to the office earlier by accidentally stabbing him near his eye. He's ok and that's another story.

Yes, in our American culture it was very rude of him to say that, but it is the truth and it is not something I don't already know. In some cultures it's no big deal to comment on someone's size. When I was in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Kiribati (in the middle of the Pacific Ocean--it's ok, no one ever knows where it is when I tell them) I weighed only about 20-25lbs more than I do right now when I started. The most common comment and question was, "Wow, you're really big!" and "Why are you so fat?" They weren't used to seeing larger sized Peace Corps girls I guess and it's not rude to make such comments in that culture. My host family was so excited to be getting the "big girl" but they weren't sure the chair they had built me would work because I was so big. It worked just fine. They also made me change my mosquito net from a single person to a double person because they felt it was too small for someone as big as me and that it was keeping me from sleeping well. The truth was that a single size was fine it was the repressive equatorial heat without air conditioning and sleeping on something the equivalent of a bumpy hardwood floor that was keeping me up.

Luckily I can take these things with a grain of salt. I realize that what was said was fact and not meant to hurt me. Kids are just really really honest and other cultures are just different.

Still, the truth hurts and I need to do something about it.