19 November 2008

On mentioning the unmentionable

And here, too.

Sorry I only found out with 45 minutes to go (GMT), but today was World Toilet Day.

Earlier on, a friend passed me a rather sentimental slideshow on a global "count your blessings" theme (duly qualified with some legitimate scepticism about some of the quoted statistics; but forwarded because the issues do indeed matter a lot). Access to clean water figured, as it should. Freedom from shit didn't. We are talking physical shit/faeces/bowel movements/excreta here. And it is indeed part of life. I seem to remember at school giggling at hearing that "excretion" was one of the criteria of life.

It won't go away, but getting its consequences to go away is probably the greatest and least glamorous public health challenge of our time.

What's it got to do with learning and teaching? For all his limitations; Maslow.

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