So during Science I spent most of my time guarding a life-size skeleton from being attacked by a large group of Kindergartners. You know the type: Random plastic skeleton man impaled on a metal pole with moveable wire joints that you see in EVERY Science room. I was fielding a lot of questions and trying to keep the skeleton’s arms intact while kids vigorously shook its bony hands. Here’s the amusing thing: Every kid at one point noticed the pubis bone and immediately connected it with something funny and/or dirty. One kid blushed and said that it was a boy skeleton, and I assured him that both girls and boys have pelvis bones, tail bones, etc. We had a discussion about the tail bone and how when you land really hard on your bottom your tail bone hurts super bad, one girl grabbed her crotch and pantomimed, “Ow! I fell on my tail bone!” I corrected her, showing her that the tail bone was in back not in front. I tried to mellow them out by having them feel their own pelvic bones below their waists. Just when I felt like I had cooled everyone off about the whole pelvis situation, Oliver strolled up to the skeleton and cried, “Look at his penis!” I tried to diffuse this immediately, “That’s the PELVIS and besides this is a skeleton, no muscles or skin or anything like that just bones….” Oliver looked at me as if I was a total idiot and said, “But what about the bone inside the penis?” (Whoa, ok…) I said, “I don’t think that part has a bone, does it?” Oliver gave me this patient look as if I obviously had NO idea what I was talking about (being a girl and all), “Yes, it does.” He moved away and I looked at the Science teacher who was laughing. “Do you get questions like that often?” I asked. “Yeah,” she acknowledged, “It’s an interesting thing though, I was trying to think of which animals do have penis bones and all I could come up with was the dog…and maybe the whale.”
It was another classic moment in kindergarten teaching.