Thursday, June 16, 2016

Nail Biter

One of the student-presented lessons today was called "My anti-nail-biting seminar." It consisted of a little video of a baby who grows up happily until... he starts biting his nails! There was also a slide show and an interactive online quiz. It was well-planned and well-executed, but not well-received. It just so happened that there were a lot of defensive nail-biters in the class who were not just grossed out by the pictures of paronychia, but dismissive of the dangers of salmonella and e-coli infection. "I've been biting my nails all my life!" stated one kid, "I've never had a problem!"

I knew what he meant. I'm a nail-biter myself, and I confess to harboring the notion that chewing on my fingers actually strengthens my immune system by exposing me to small doses of pathogens. Of course the same could be said about picking your nose and, you know.

Whether my theory is true or not,  I certainly don't want to encourage others to bite their nails, especially kids in my class. That would be wrong, but maybe we could accept nail-biters for who they are, rather than villainizing them.

I mean, us.

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