"We Don't Say Those Words”

 Hello everyone, and Happy Valentine’s Day. 

I have a child in my class who has a birth mark on her face right above a left eye.  On more than one occasion I’ve overhead a few of the other children asked her “what’s that on your eye” or “why do you have that boo boo on your face”.  She never replied she’d just run away or continue playing.  On this one particular day we were out on the playground and one of the other children “screamed run from her she has a disease on her face that can make you sick”.  Immediately the child started crying because all of the other kids ran to the other side of the slide.  I walked over to the child kneeled down comforted her, once I got her to stop crying I called for recess to be over and we all went back inside.  I asked the little boy to apologize to the little for making her cry.  I also explained to him as well as the other children that the scar on the little girls face was a birthmark, and that we all have a birthmark, I should them my birthmark which was located on my upper left arm.  I told the children that birthmarks comes in all different shapes, sizes and that some birthmarks can also look like a scare like the one on Dena’s face.  A few of the other kids begin pointing out on their legs and arms what they believed or were told by their parents their birthmarks.  It turned out to be a very interesting discussion.  One child believed his birthmark looked like a hammer while others began to pull-up their shirts to show the other children marks on their upper shoulder or the lower part of their stomach.  By end of the discussion the kids were telling Dena that her birthmark looked like a baby butterfly.  She was laughing enjoying the comments she was getting about her birthmark.

Several weeks later I found out that a family member of the little boy who lived on the West coast had did from Aids.  I believe that the child must have overheard someone talking about the lesions this person may have had and related this to the remark he had made about Dena.