My first few weeks as middle school teacher were fortunate enough to be full of what I had dubbed, the "puke and run." At least three times in the first few weeks of school, I would walk into the hallway after school, only to smell the acidic aroma of throw-up and look down the hallway to see a chair poised over wet paper towels like a penguin over it's egg.
When I approached the area, I asked the nearby students who had puked, and if they were alright. Without fail, no one knew to whom the spew belonged. I laughed/cried at the thought of a nervous and scared middle schooler, their first few days dealing with lockers, block schedule, and allegedly getting trampled in the hallways, feeling so sick and nervous that they had to ralph right in the hallway, unable to make it to the bathroom. Then, in true middle school fashion, the student fled the scene of their own upchuck, leaving a hallway hazard; a puke and run.
Throwing up is more common in middle school than I remember, but I had yet to suffer through it in my own classroom. Unfortunately, I had to go and select the word "disgorge" from the book we were reading, Malgudi Days, by R.K. Narayan. While disgorge can be applied to non-intestinal issues, that was the easiest and most popular way for the students to remember the word, so that is usually how we practiced it. One day, as we were reviewing the vocabulary words from the book (disgorge prominent among them), a student, let's call him Jose, told me he was feeling sick. Middle School students are always ailing in some way, so I am usually reluctant to send them to the nurse, but this was a student who didn't really play that game, so I sent him to the nurse. As usual, he returned a few minutes later with some water and some crackers. As we continued to work, I had my back turned to the student, and I heard a report from behind me, "Mr. Maddox, Jose puked!" This was a diction related self-fulfilling prophecy if I had ever seen one.
I turn to find chewed up versions of the aforementioned crackers and water all over the floor and a couple students shoes and pants. Jose sat frozen and covering his mouth with a look of what must have been the pinnacle of pre-teen embarrassment on his face. I quickly rushed him back to the nurse, and cleared the classroom for fear of a chain reaction puke waterfall triggered by the sight, sound and smell of our first accident. Yes, there was puke. In my room. On my floor. The smell lingered for days, which was probably much shorter than the shame lingered on Jose's face.
As we cleared the classroom and into an empty one for the final bit of class, I knew that these students would never forget the word disgorge. Unfortunately, they would also never forget that Jose was the one who lost his lunch.
The vocabulary tests proved me correct, as nearly every student nailed the disgorge sentence. I try my best to teach a relevant, engaging curriculum that connects to the real world, but sometimes life hands you little gifts (disgusting or otherwise) that provide the REAL learning in school. We learned all too well what disgorge mean that day, as well as the fact that the nurse shouldn't "just guess" about a student's temperature when she "loses the thermometer."
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