I have spent the last few days emphasizing that one-size-fits-all approaches do not work for our diversifying student population, while also subbing at a preschool. Alas, the aide who had foot-surgery will return soon, and I will have to move on. I will miss my little nippers. We have been playing together for weeks.

But here are a few observations worth contemplating as we target resilience and mindset: Developmentally-delayed three- to five-year-olds use diapers. The minority who have graduated to underwear cannot be trusted to avoid accidents. Diapers come with the territory. I am going to confess something slightly wacky. I mostly like diaper changes. Some changes no sane person would want to get involved in. How can a cohesive brown substance cover so much surface so fast?  But that soggy, wet waddle? That waddle offers me a few minutes of quiet time to talk one-on-one to a kid. The kids seem to enjoy diaper changes too, most of the time. An adult is taking care of them. The verbal kids happily babble, enjoying being the center of attention.

But almost nobody ever brings the need for a diaper change to my attention. Why stop playing? Clearly, students believe the diaper can wait — almost any diaper. Some students do not care what leaks out or where it goes. No, everyone plays on with the exception of one fastidious girl. She will be potty trained soon. She does not like the feel of that diaper. I honestly don’t think anyone else cares. One boy recently just peed down his leg, making a big puddle on the floor, rather than give up the crayons. He got fresh clothes, but his shoes were soaked, and had been soaked for awhile, I suspect, before I wandered over to watch his quiet, solo play and saw the suspicious yellow puddle. Suspicious is not be the right word. He was convicted on the spot. The snack had been milk and apples.

Pooping is more interesting. (My, this is a silly post, except I honestly think it highlights a truth or two.) Last week, one of the five-year-old trained went in his underpants and just kept playing. I sniffed as we began to get ready for busses. I asked him. He stayed silent. I persisted. He grinned and admitted, yes, he had had an accident. That led to bus craziness as I was forced to abandon bus duties to change all of his lower clothing, borrow pants and clean a pretty large mess. He kept grinning. I guarantee some other students would have been mortified. But not this kid. I ended up triple-bagging that clothing.

A few kids want that turd in the garbage right away. Others would be capable for playing for hours if their teacher had a bad enough head cold. Some are embarrassed. Many are oblivious. A few make calculated choices, as if to say,  “I’ll keep a distance from the adults and finish gym before I deal with this problem.” A few girls have also become self-appointed diaper reporters. One little girl helps so much I am worried. I hope a future teacher works on discretion in tattling. If not, she will struggle socially in elementary school.

Before I ramble on further on this silly topic, I had better make my point :-}. Even in this one small thing, the kids I see daily are so different. If someone was crazy enough to do a study, I suspect they would discover that diaper behavior has various predictive uses. Waddle walkers are messier snack eaters, for example. They are more likely to keep playing for awhile after you sing the clean-up song. I don’t have a large enough sample to assert something this important, but overall they may be happier, too.

With enough pressure, I could make my waddle walkers into fast diaper changers if I tried, I suspect. But why should I subject them to that pressure? As the saying goes, they won’t go to college in diapers. All sorts of verbal messages about how diaper rash hurts just fly past my waddle walkers, even when they repeat my words and ask about them. Those words are still not enough to lure them away from the Lego.

That girl who is reporting all the diaper transgressions? She is going to be an easy student. She works hard and adds many details to her art. That boy who grinned as I ran down people to find me somebody’s extra pants? He’s going to be much more of a handful. He hardly ever starts cleaning after the clean-up song.  If we give them both an identical curriculum presented in a monolithic lesson plan, my girl will outshine my boy almost all of the time, unless maybe the topic is dinosaurs.

Eduhonesty: The Common Core will heavily favor my girl. That’s one reason I am certain we should be moving away from regimented content and instruction. Yes, education classes teach differentiation, but when the curriculum becomes too specific and its time demands too overwhelming, that differentiation can get replaced by an early childhood version of the Curriculum Death March. If you don’t believe me, read the Common Core standards for math for the first grade.

We need to celebrate all our children, not merely the easy and obedient ones. The more we leave teachers alone to work with students placed in their classrooms, the more likely that true differentiation and support will occur. Differentiation and support require time. Fewer spreadsheets filled with superfluous student data and fewer meetings to discuss those spreadsheets would help. The men and women in the field with their boots on the ground should be determining instruction. Our curricular frameworks need to be loosened to meet individual needs.

Because all of these kids are distinct individuals, even the ones who have no idea how to spell their own names.