Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Lies my science teacher told me

My 8th grade science teacher left such an impression on me. Not because he was such a great teacher, but because of all the lies he told, which took me several years to figure out were untrue. I remember he had a lot of wacky stories about all sorts of things that he said either happened to him, or someone he knew.

The most memorable was when we did a unit on parasites and he told us about tapeworms. According to him, he had some friends who had tapeworms because they took diet pills that were actually tapeworm eggs. One man would go to a restaurant, and order bad food (rotten eggs and other spoiled things). After eating that, he would order a steak or something else good. When questioned he said, "I didn't want to feed my tapeworm anything good." He also told us how these people got rid of their worms. According to my teacher you can take some medicine to kill the tapeworm, but it gives you a terrible stomach ache for a few days. So instead, one of his friends just didn't eat for a few days. Then he held a steak in front of his open mouth and waited for the tapeworm to crawl out. Another one made a cut in his leg and the worm crawled out there. (Not sure how).

The unit we did on reproduction was full of lies. I don't remember discussing how babies are made, but I remember the teacher telling us that it was possible for a woman to get pregnant again, when she is already pregnant. He said that when twins are born, one is usually smaller than the other. That is because one has been in the womb for 9 months and the other one only 8 months. He told a story about a lady he knew who went to the doctor to have a baby. After the baby was born the doctor said to the lady, "See you in 4 months." The lady asked, "What for?"
"To have the other one." was the doctors reply.

2 comments:

emily said...

Oh my goodness! I cannot believe he spoke such utter nonsense, let alone to a classroom full of students (ie, sponges).

Heather said...

I just remember him telling us that it was ok to drink the water with algae growing in it, that he had put up in case of emergency.