After school today, after my last class and my after school duty, I finally had time to use the restroom.  While this isn’t something I would normally share, what happened as I was TRYING to get to the bathroom is worth sharing.  Rather than use the faculty restroom, I chose to use the restroom across from my room which is a multi-stall bathroom, the ones the kids use during the day.  As I start to go in, a girl in the hallway says “hi Mrs. Bush!”.  I look at her, say hi and proceed into the bathroom, where I hear her say to someone else, “Look!  I found Mrs. Bush”.  They both proceed to follow me into the bathroom, talking to me as I go into the stall, still waving at me.  They’ve already begun the social bathroom conversation that women seem to have and it didn’t seem unusual at all for them to follow a teacher into the bathroom.

On the other side of the coin, this morning I get word that a couple of boys have set up a game of badminton in the bathroom, using a wadded up paper towel as a shuttlecock and the stall wall as the net.  So, I do the usual “Do I need to come in there”, which I really can’t do, and they both come out, throwing the paper towel away with sheepish grins on their faces.

While I realize that genders aren’t as simple as boys and girls anymore, the vast majority of my kids are what I would consider the typical elementary boy and girl.  And it’s always interesting to observe the behaviors of one versus the other.  Yesterday during 1st grade was a perfect example.

The kids found out that my birthday was this past weekend and asked how old I was.  My usual response is to add 100 years to my actual age, so 158.  Then one of my girls, trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth or not, asks how old my mom is and I shared that my mother had passed away.  She and a small bunch of girls around her respond with great kindness and sympathy.  Across the circle one of boys asks “Did she die like this?” and proceeds to do a belly flop on the floor.  The whole room erupts in laughter, including me.  It’s not that I don’t have girls with a wicked sense of humor, or that boys can’t be sympathetic, but this seems to be the typical kind of response I get.

You can just watch kids as they go down the hallway with the little girls skipping and the boys seeing if they can jump high enough to touch the top of the door.  You can see it when I pass out boomwhackers in class and the girls may begin to play them and the boys will begin turning them into all kinds of things like light sabers, telescopes, bazookas and baseball bats.

I always wonder if this is nature or nurture or perhaps a combination of both.  Today was picture day and so many of the girls were in their prettiest little dresses while the boys were all in button down plaid shirts or polos with khakis.  There is an obvious expectation from parents as to how they believe their children should look for posterity and it is pretty stereotypical.  If that is also encouraged in terms of behavioral expectations, then obviously it’s more nurture.  And is this helping or hurting our kids?  Or does it really matter? What would their true personalities be if we just left them alone or let them choose?

As hard as I try not to, these stereotypical behaviors set up an expectation in terms of my teaching.  I spend my time trying to anticipate any type of interesting behavior my boys can think of and look to my girls to bring some calm to the situation.  The most I can expect from the girls is that they will talk too much.  With my boys it’s anticipating them leaping off of the risers, wrestling on the carpet or running into each other on purpose during a movement activity.

I love and appreciate their creativity and their energy.  I love the sweetness and social activities of the girls.  I appreciate being attacked with hugs from all of them, the high fives from the boys when they see how hard they can slap my hand and all of the stories they want to tell me. Each of them has their own gifts that they bring to the classroom and that in turn is what makes each day a bit of an adventure.