Mrs. Bloom was my first-grade teacher. As she and Dick and Jane helped us discover reading, she also dealt with all the realities associated with six- and seven-year-olds, from accidents to tears to post-recess vomiting to my classmate Chuckie, who ate a lot of crayons. There were no litterboxes in her classroom.
Nor were there litterboxes in classes in Hendricks County or anywhere back then — or today, for that matter — despite what you may have been led to believe. The real story that spawned the recent hysteria about alleged litterboxes goes back to a state legislator in Colorado. They happened to be visiting a primary classroom in a school in their district when they spotted a bucket filled what looked like kitty litter.
The principal explained that it can be hard for little ones to control their bladders during a lengthy lockdown triggered by something like an armed intruder. Since it isn’t safe to send the youngsters to the nearest restroom when the school is under threat, teachers improvised an emergency backup.
Our Colorado politician found this concept so amusing they tweeted a comment about seeing a litterbox in a classroom. Someone in the Twitterverse with an axe to grind connected that to claims of children pretending to be animals, and the rest is history, albeit fictional history.
So no, classrooms weren’t being equipped with litterboxes but were keeping buckets of the stuff to save some poor first graders the embarrassment of peeing their pants. Nor were (or are) students who claimed to be “furries” motivating other districts to buy litterboxes of their own.
I mention this because it’s a prime example of the nonsense we’re seeing on social media. Organizations that are eager to sow dissension among Americans post falsehoods like these to make people like you angry, so you spread them to more people. When those organizations see that you like and share these posts, they feed more of them to you in an ever-more-vicious cycle.
Boomers are the most gullible audience on social media (and yes, I was born during Ike’s presidency, so I’m one, too). You would think a generation known for questioning everything and distrusting the Establishment — and who warned their own children not to believe everything they saw online — would be more wary of the garbage showing up in their daily social media feeds. Sadly, study after study confirms that most Boomers accept everything they see online as factual, no matter if it’s something as ridiculous as litterboxes in classrooms. Please be smarter than that.
By the way, that Colorado state rep was a funny person, huh? Want to know more about their sense of humor and proportion? That school district with the litter buckets operates a high school whose name you may recognize.
It’s Columbine.