Lessons of Teaching, Pt 1

Sad but very true, if you are poor, no one cares about your dental health. I looked around my classroom the other day and was stunned to count five students out of 18 with extremely bad teeth (one just has a mean case of halitosis, so I’m guessing her teeth are bad, but maybe not). One girl, 17, has an appointment next week to have several teeth pulled, which is how I discovered that the state will extend dental care to you if your teeth are rotting out of your head. I believe Kentucky was recently reported to have the most toothless residents, but surely WV can’t be far behind. Second (to last) or 49th place seems to be our niche.

Our classroom is filled these days with sad cases: two boys under 21 and one of about 23 facing criminal charges or already on probation; the girl mentioned above just put into the custody of her sister, a former student of ours who is barely of age herself; one handsome young boy whose mother has been in prison for 12 years, since he was 9. He sold drugs for several years but has decided to change his life. After telling me that he didn’t get along with his father, a welder who “doesn’t do anything but work,” I later heard him tell the other teacher in the room that he would like go to the local technical school to learn welding. This boy wears quarter-inch diameter silver rings in his ears and rubs and tugs at them constantly. I can’t take my eyes off of them, and I just want to scream, “Take them out, for God’s sake!” We’ve got another occasional student who last year wore a small silver spike sticking out between his lower lip and chin. He also fiddled with it incessantly. I noticed last week that he doesn’t wear it any more.

Also we have a bewildered mother whose youngest son is being put in alternative school, a mother with a family history of bipolar disorder who was put on lithium three weeks ago without a bipolar diagnosis. She was nearly drooling in class and littering the floor around her with crumbs of her breath mints. A different doctor took her off the lithium last week.

These aren’t necessarily the worst stories, just the ones that come to mind first. It’s easy to see why none of these students think much about dental care.