Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Smelly Kid I guess I am still considered a novice teacher because I have been teaching for four years only. I am an elementary school teacher who teaches in a mostly White suburban setting. Couple of weeks ago a new student joined my classroom. He and his parents recently moved from Eastern Europe. His father works at the local university as a music professor. I am not sure what his mother does. He is a wonderful child. Although he speaks little English, he tries to participate in class activities and to make friends with others in the classroom. Couple days after he arrived, I noticed a strange smell around him. I was sure that it was body odor. The other students in the classroom started noticing it too. They started making fun of him. I learned in my multicultural classes when I was at the university that not all cultures promote taking showers everyday, and that body odor is not considered a problem everywhere in the world. Now I have a big dilemma. If I tell my student about it, I might embarrass him. If I sent a note to his parents, I may appear disrespectful toward their culture. But the way he is treated in the classroom by the other students is becoming a real problem. What should I do? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) I would first ask the counselor about any background information that she has on the student and whether or not the parents have said anything about him being teased in the past. This would give me an idea of whether or not the parents were aware of the situation. It may be that this is just a phase the child is going through. Doing this would at least give me an opportunity to make the counselor aware of the situation as I set out to contact the parents. I also think that making sure that the adults on campus know what is going on could help in assisting with making sure that other students do not tease him. After I had done those things, I would carefully contact the parents, and I would hope that they could come in for a conference because I would rather have the conversation in person.