Yes, Teachers Fart in Class
And sometimes let students take the blame
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this.
Well, it turns out that my big brother Michael L Butler wrote in this space that I was known as The Fart Champion in high school. Some of my nicknames were The Fart Master, The Farting Machine, The Fart Man, and The King of Farts.
So I might as well tell you about the time I farted in my sixth-grade class as a first-year teacher. The thing is, it was an SBD (Silent But Deadly), and no one knew it was me. Would you suspect the teacher or some sixth-grader?
I went on ahead with teaching my class amid this foul odor that my students began to smell, and being the sixth-graders they were, several of the male students began blaming the SBD on those they imagined had done the deed.
And was I going to stand by and let one of my students get blamed for something they didn’t do? And be embarrassed in front of their peers?
Or was I going to come out and admit it, “Okay, everyone, it was me… I farted.” Or was I going to kill this fun moment by being The Teacher?
Or was there a better option? That’s what I mulled over as my Stinker caused an uproar.
The intangibles of education
“Man, someone let out a bomb,” I said to take the suspicion off me. “Do you guys smell that? It’s the worst fart … it’s an atomic level fart!”
“Silent, but deadly.”
The key thing you have to understand is, I’m a strong proponent of this one education quote:
“In education, we call it the hidden curriculum, which is the intangibles — the friendships, relationships, and the good times — and we celebrate these first.”
This moment to me was the intangibles — the friendships, the relationships, the good times. This was an opportunity where I could break down the wall between teacher and students and share some laughter with my students.
So I listened as my students took turns pointing fingers at each other for who had they imagined who had caused the lingering smell in our classroom while several female students giggled at the boys’ accusations over who did it.
And I let my fart create an intangible moment.
It felt like a game of clue
Was it Professor Plum? Colonel Mustard? Mr. Green? Ms. Peacock? Which part of the room did the smell emanate from? Many students were using logic to discern the deadly culprit.
But no one suspected it was the teacher. It was one of those classes with a lot of boys with big personalities who like to have fun … so I took the drama and riffed with their ridiculousness.
“It seems like it came from the left side of the room,” I deduced. “I mean, I’m just saying… I was standing in the middle of the room, and I smelled the scorcher on this side of the room.”
Everyone on the right side of the room looked at the suspects: five or six boys on the left side.
The accusations among the boys resumed with an increased intensity while the students on the other side of the room enjoyed the spectacle.
We all enjoyed a break from the seriousness of learning, and it’s fair to say my fart united us together in a funny moment that kept getting extended as the boys were determined to “out” the farter or to divert us from work for a while.
I was loving the incongruity of the moment: Who would suspected the teacher had tooted?
I started to feel nervous
The smell wouldn’t go away, it downright reeked awful, and I started to feel nervous that someone might notice it was hovering around me, the teacher, but no run-of-the-mill, sixth-grader would ever suspect a teacher of farting.
I thought I was safe from suspicion. It would take an exceptional student to figure out I was the one who farted…one who might end up going to UCLA, Stanford, Harvard, or Brown.
The scary thing is, I had a few of these students. Jameson, the quiet kid with a love for history, Danny the smart kid who told me about articles from Time magazine, two girls-best buddies who completed their assignments with zeal.
And maybe, Kevin, the chattiest kid in class.
Wherever I moved him, he would talk to those students. I knew it would be a talent someday, and he had a book and street smart mentality to him. If anyone, I thought he’d know it was me.
So I kept a, eye on Kevin during The Great Fart Accusation.
The finger-pointing reached the point where everyone, including the girls, had an opinion on who they thought did it. It came down to two boys: Dave and Todd, and they were both pointing the finger at each other.
“I smelled from under your desk,” Dave said.
“Why are you blame blaming your nasty fart on me?” Todd countered as the class and I cracked up.
I felt like asking Kevin, who craved the spotlight, who he thought did it. But he was making me a tad nervous because he was barely speaking while most everyone else was talking. But he seemed to be enjoying the comedy of it.
Finally, I quelled the chaos
“One of y’all did it,” a girl blurted out. “I know it was one of y’all two. I smelled it right away.”
“Whoever smelt it dealt it,” someone said.
I thought of confessing to the fart, but I chose instead to divert their attention away from guessing who was the culprit of the stinking scorcher by telling a funny story about … a fart.
I knew I had to reel in the fun and tie it up with a red ribbon — this moment we had shared, and I knew just how to do it.
“This is a story,” I said, “about the time I farted in class as a student in sixth grade.”
“You farted in class?” a girl said. “That’s nasty.”
Everyone laughed. “Hey, I was in sixth grade. I farted just like someone did today in class.”
Then I told them about this cute blonde-hair girl, Kelly, who I sat next to and I had a crush on, but I was too shy to talk to her unless she talked with me.
“Well, milk makes me fart, and one day in the middle of class I let out a fart. Everyone turned and looked at me, so I had to think on my feet.”
I did the worst thing I could do: I pointed at Kelly out of a nervous reaction and pointed at her, and she never talked to me ever again.
“You’re like Dave blaming his farts on me,” Todd said.
Water started coming out of my eyes as we laughed, and I laughed the hardest because I knew the truth about the fart.
I finally regained my composure. “So the lesson is … if you fart you should never blame it on a girl,” I said. “If a guy blames it on a guy, that’s okay. We all fart, right? But to blame it on a girl you have a crush on, well, that is really”
We switched from talking about farts to … love because girls in my class wanted to know if the girl I blamed the fart on talked to me again.
“Nope. I had broken her trust by what I’d done.”
Teacher lesson
What this moment in class taught me is to not be afraid to laugh and to have some fun with my students. The 15 to 20-minute break from the lesson plan felt like it drew my students and me closer together from our shared laughter.
And I believe we all have an inner struggle to let others see a personal side of ourselves, and we keep certain parts of ourselves locked up and away in a secret compartment, but I wanted to let my students to see my human side.
I didn’t want to be the boring teacher. I wanted to be the kickass teacher. And I knew I had to kick down the wall between us if I wanted to get my students to love what I loved: Literature.
And so I inadvertently found a way to connect with my students with my SBD and turned the moment into the intangibles of education — the friendships, the relationships, the good times — that students seldom experience in class.
These moments are rare, so I milked the fart.
Thank you for reading my story.
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