Why Do People Pick Their Noses?

In my elementary school years, in the 1950's, every school's notebook has to have the ten guidelines for personal hygiene printed on its back cover. Those were also notebooks given to each pupil by the government. Yet, the school restrooms never had toilet papers or any cleansing ware. Only a hole in the ground and water faucet in each toilet stool. Taking care of my personal hygiene, in those early years, was a matter of random picking from other kids. My parents were busy connecting with one another. And, most probably, the teachers faced the same distraction of parents. Here you go, Human zoo with every confusion as zoo has. That was Alexandria, Egypt, where water faucets are the most modern luxury of living in a city. Electricity, clean water, and sewer were then scarce in rural areas. Today, after 60 years and in this developed country, the USA, the main challenges are not the basic needs. There is plenty of electricity, great sewer system, and abundance of sanitary supplies. Only education is shackled by dysfunctional systems. Parents have no clue of what constitutes good education. Teachers are chattered between the cranky local administration and the politically motivated state administration. 

In a class of first graders, I noticed that some kids chow their nasal crust after picking their noses. I had a similar concern a while ago when a mother stated blatantly that "kids always do that". She added that her daughter's smoking doesn't bother her since she also smoked when she was young, but now quit. Am I alone in that crusade on educating children the meaning of clean life? If moms do not care about making their kids the best they could be, are we expecting the government to do the job? Or, is it that Moms are too busy with the consuming tasks of survival and that refinement of human skills is the last thing on their minds?  

In one engaging classroom, a child with unique habit of always asking endless questions, sat right at my feet steps. I started explaining the tear canals by drawings to show the difference between the camel's eyes and the penguin's eyes. Kids quickly figured out that camels must have long eye lashes in order to live in the desert. Penguins do not need eye lashes in the snow. Or do they? Ryan, the child at my feet steps quickly hinted that there must be two tear canals in each person. For a first grader, that was unusual calling out. I already asked whether they know that the tears must go through the nose, unless the person was crying.  Then I blocked the tear canal with a large dot. Now, more than one kid were competing with Ryan to explain that the tears will flow on the cheeks because the tear canal was blocked. 

 

Camels are equipped with plenty of eye lashed and specially configured nostrils that permit camels to endure sand blizzards and dry climates.

The aerodymanic profile of the camel's face allow the sand to flow with least impact on the camels eyes, nose, or lungs.

Getting over the flow of tears in the eyes of humans, camels, and penguins, took us to the question: what is in the nose?

Quite the same stuff that fills the eyes but with greater frequency. The tears cleanse the eyes and nose. But, rubbing the nose with fingers would scratch their lining and spread their contents everywhere around us. Kids quickly picked on the dust in their own houses, streets, and schools.  Which one would have greater priority; cleaning your nose often? or keeping your surrounding as clean as you could?

In other words, would you rather live the camel's life or the penguin's?

Though the tears are very effective defense mechanism for protecting the eyes from infection, Trachoma has caused millions of blind eyes by invading the eye lids and damaging the corneas. In desert areas, the tears might not protect the eyes from the constant friction of the fine particles of sand that destroy the cornea. 

But that is not all. Alcohol and smoking interfere with the flow of tears in the tear ducts and cause both eye and ear infection. The  infamous triple endoscopic examination that is required on smokers and alcoholics is simply due to the damage to the nose, ears, and throat as consequence to the negligence of oral hygiene in smokers and alcoholics. The nicotine and carbon monoxide damage the ever growing cells of the tear duct lining. Alcohol numbs the flow of fluids in ducts allover the body. Beside the impact of smoking and alcohol on personal motivation, the physical impact of those marches relentlessly from minor damage to progressive and greater damages that end into malignancy. 

And, the tears protect the ears.

The middle ears are connected with the pharynx through the Eustachian tube. Both the tear duct and the Eustachian duct share the cavity of the pharynx, oral and nasal.

Teaching kids, how to approach growth issues, requires mature and caring adults who could deal with young brains of kids as if they were the seeds of future geniuses, which they truly are.