Teachers are a dedicated and passionate group of human beings, and first-grade teacher Anna Trupiano is no different. A teacher of deaf students at Washington D.C.’s Kendall Demonstration Elementary School, Trupiano works with students who are either completely deaf or hard-of-hearing. One day in class, Ms. Trupiano encountered an interesting dilemma when one of her six-year-old students farted loudly in class. As it turned out, there are some students in the class who can hear a little, so they naturally heard the fart and started giggling. The little boy who had gas looked around, confused, and wanted to know why his peers were laughing. What resulted was a hilarious teaching moment that Ms. Trupiano found herself wholly unprepared for.
Unprepared or not, teachers are trained to “wing it” and Ms. Trupiano did that indeed. The result was a 15-minute lesson on how farts work. When she posted the story to Facebook (without names, of course), it quickly went viral, much to her surprise. What makes this even better is that the entire conversation took place in American Sign Language (ASL). At some point, it began to dawn on her young students that all of this time, they’ve been farting and hearing people have been aware of it. This left them understandably horrified, but also intrigued. First, the little boy wondered why his classmates were looking at him and laughing. He was genuinely curious.
When Ms. Trupiano explained that they heard him fart, the little boy was outraged and asked, “Wait, they can hear all farts?!?!” Ms. Trupiano then had to explain that no, they can’t hear all farts. This further confused the little boy, who wanted to know exactly how farts work. Ms. Trupiano explained that when you fart, if you feel your butt move with the fart, people around you probably hear the fart. She clarified that if you don’t feel your butt move when you fart, the people around you probably don’t hear it. Fun fact: I did not realize our butts move when we fart. But anyhow. Once it dawned on the little boy that people were hearing him fart, he got really mad and said, “Tell them to stop listening to my farts! That’s not nice!”. The teacher explained that hearing people can’t turn off their hearing and they can’t stop hearing farts, even if they wanted to. This gave the little boy another idea: he’d just stop farting.
When he said he’d stop farting, the teacher explained that it’s impossible to not fart, that everyone farts. The little boy was gobsmacked, and asked, “Wait. Everyone? Even my mom?” The little boy was shocked when the teacher affirmed that yes, indeed, his mom farts. With that response, the little boy had another epiphany: “Even you???” When he asked that, the other students in the class began to laugh hysterically, prompting the little boy to just give up, saying, “What?! Ugh. I don’t understand farts.” Indeed, most of us don’t. Ms. Trupiano hilariously pointed out, “I went to college for eight years to have these conversations.”
