Sunday, July 15, 2007

. . . When The Teacher Is Wrong, Pt. 1

My experiences with teachers have not always been positive. Sometimes I wonder how I ever decided to become one of them; then, of course, I remember Dad saying something about how if I didn't declare a major and actually stick to it he was going to cut me off, blah blah blah, and suddenly an education degree started looking pretty good, not to mention easy, and please, teachers, don't start in on me for saying that because we all know it's true, more's the pity. At least, back in the seventies it was true, for it was the era of "If you don't want to take math or science, you may substitute something else and have it count," which explains all those diverse endorsements sprinkled all over my teacher's license.

I hated math, so I took PE. All the science labs were at 7:00 a.m., so I took School and Community Health and Advanced Expository Writing. Astronomy and Geology both met at night, so I did take them both, and I LOVE them to this day. LOVE them!!!!!

Yes, I was a true academic, through and through.

I did sign up for Advanced Mammalian Physiology one semester, although it did have a 7:15 a.m. lab. I had a perfectly good, logical reason: My boyfriend was in that class. I went into it with no prerequisites, no interest, and half-comatose because it was so early in the day.

Surprisingly, I did pretty well at first; and then, a full week AFTER drop-and-add was over, we had our first lab. We were each given a live frog and told not to give him a name.

It was too late. I have always anthropomorphized everything (ask my kids!) and my sweet little froggie was named Prince Charming the very moment I lifted him out of the box and made him my own, because he looked exactly like the Frog Prince in the Classics Illustrated, Junior, comic book I read in second grade, which, by the way, I still have.

My instructions were to spread-eagle Prince Charming in a corkbox, pin down his little hands and feet, and make an X-shaped incision on his little white tummy. We were then instructed to fold back the four triangles of skin, observe his beating heart and inflating/deflating lungs, aim a fan at him, and time how long it took the internal organs to stop functioning.

I walked out and never went back. I walked out with Prince Charming in my pocket, and I set him free in the River Jordan, the gorgeous big creek which flows all over the IU campus. A raccoon probably ate him, but that's still a better fate than death by having your internal organs exposed to the gush of air from a fan and having the whole ghastly thing timed.

It was too late to drop the course, so even though I was actually passing the tests, I failed the class because my labs were all zeros.

I have never regretted that decision.