Why all educators should experience a root canal

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I spent about 2 hours with one of these things in my mouth this afternoon.

After about a week of pain* and increasing doses of Tylenol with decreasing degrees of effect, I got in to see my dentist. A new cap on a tooth had developed an abscess - and it hurt like hell.

The root canal was something that I began to REALLY look forward to.

Now why I still think it is patently unfair that anyone who is as religious about flossing and brushing and bi annual cleanings and annual checkups and avoidance of sugared soft drinks should experience any dental problems at all, I believe everyone should all have a dental problem now and again.

The thing is I CAN have dental work done. I have a job. I have a dental plan. I have savings in the bank. I have transportation. I even have access to the Internet where I could read what was going to happen during the procedure. I knew my bad tooth was a temporary condition.

Although my family was far from rich, regular dental care was part of my childhood. And that has shaped my world view. Isn't dental care just a part of life?

For how many of our kids can we say the same thing? For how many of their parents? As our student poverty rates increase, are we as educators changing our perceptions of what it means to be growing up in today's society?

• Where not everyone has dental care?
• Where not everyone has parents who have dental plans?
• Where not every family has transportation to a dentist?
• Where a toothache may just be a part of life, not a short-lived condition that will be remedied?

I'm just saying that all of us old, middle class folks who are in education need to drink deeply from the well of empathy when working with children of poverty. Our world is not their world.

Think about it the next time you have a sore molar.

*The kind of pain that made you think Tom Hanks has the right idea in Castaway to remove his painful tooth with a rock.

Comments

[Jim Randolph]

That Tom Hanks scene gets me every time.