I had been asked to make a presentation to the first and second grade Beta Team when my daughter Kimberly was a first-grader. I was practically a star at this time because Kimberly's teacher had allowed the class to view my TV debut when I had appeared a few weeks earlier on a Milwaukee station as a rabies "expert." For once, even my own children seemed impressed by my new stature as media spokesperson, and Kimberly was proud that I had been invited to her class.
Dressed professionally in my white lab coat and carrying a box containing an egg carton filled with embryonated chicken eggs and Petri dishes, I appeared at the class door. I set the box in the corner, and commenced with my presentation.
I warned against handling unknown dogs and cats and wild animals. The students and I discussed general pet care and the responsibility of caring for a pet. I answered many questions from interested listeners and passed out brochures about animal diseases.
Then, I set up the lab experiment. With all the children gathered around me at the front of the classroom, I whisked the box open and set five plastic Petri dishes on top of the teacher's desk. I borrowed a pair of scissors and sharply rapped an egg across it's warm shell. The egg broke, and I poured the contents into a dish.
The children gathered closer around me, uttering words of awe, as they viewed the tiny embryo. I was in my glory, as I explained to the teacher that the "experts" believe that "reverence for life" can be taught by just such methods as these--bringing new life into the classroom.
I proceeded until I had five tiny chicks floating in their pale nurturing fluid in clear, plastic dishes. The children peered closer, amazed by the bulging eyes, barely covered with a thin membrane, and little beaks and claws already formed. Then, one chubby, tow-headed boy, his eyes bright and alert behind thick glasses, asked, "Are they going to live? Can we put them back in the shell?"
The little boy's voice was low and concerned, and the other children acted as if they hadn't heard, or maybe they, like me, were already experienced in denial. I looked at five tiny unborn chickens already growing stiff and cold because of me. They would have died anyway; they came from the lab where I worked and were used for vaccine testing. But, that wasn't the point. I had acted under the delusion that I was teaching reverence for life, and in so doing, I was taking life. It suddenly dawned on me--I was the emperor with no clothes, and the bespectacled student the only child honest enough to speak the truth. I had never felt more naked or exposed.
I turned to the little boy, and shook my head. "No, son, we can't put them back again. Like Humpty Dumpty, they are gone."
The little fellow turned away, and I gladly diverted my attention to the other children, who were excitedly telling me about their pets.
Two weeks later, I received beautiful letters, some embellsihed with crayon art, from the class, thanking me for my visit. My own Kimberly wrote a letter which I have with me still. It reads: Dear Mom, I liked your speach. You rote it in one night. I'm proud of you. Your the best mom in the wold. Kim W.
Every once in a while, I get that letter out and read it, and I am swamped with feelings of adequacy and inadequacy. I wonder about the natural love and reverence for life that youngsters are born with. We don't need to teach it. We just need to keep from destroying it.
