Body Art

As all bloggers do, who have Sitemeter on their page, I find myself checking on my recent visitors by their referrals. Recently someone stumbled upon my blog by searching, "teaching children to place band aid on cut." How they were linked to me I'll have no idea and just how many pages of Google's recommendations did they have to riffle through to find This Teaching Life? However, this made me begin thinking of how this accidental visitor must have been feeling to turn to Google for guidance on this subject. Funny thing is, I sympathize with this visitor because I am familiar with the frustration I imagine him/her to have been feeling.

Teaching first graders has made me become a skeptic of injuries. My little students will almost do anything for a band aid with a popular cartoon character such as Sponge Bob or Dora on it. The slightest scrape, hang nail, or bruise constitutes immediate first aid attention in their eyes, leaving me frustrated that I have to stop, mid sentence mind you, in the throws of my great teaching moments to attend to their medical emergencies. I will examine the cut, or lack there of, searching for the smallest trace of blood, while pondering the need of the band aid over in my head. Having no medical education to fall back on, nine times out of ten my response is, "Band aids stop bleeding and you're not bleeding, so a band aid will not make (insert non laceration "boo boo" of your choice here) better." Maybe my students' desire for Sponge Bob or Dora band aids is the beginning of an appreciation for body art? I wonder if some will tattoo themselves with Dora and Diego on their 18th birthday?