Maggots

"Today, students we are going to learn about Maggots and how to identify the main idea in a non-fiction passage." "Cool, but gross," is what I hear students murmuring through the rows of desks. As we read, we learn that during the Civil War, maggots were found in soldiers wounds, and the soldiers who had the maggots survived. Why? Because those pesty baby larvae would eat the infection (puss) out of the wounds. One doctor chose to use maggots instead of amputating an elderly woman's foot, and it worked. As we proceed with the reading and discussion of the "healing power's of maggots," I look up just in time to see a student in the last row look at me. His face is as white as a ghost. "Oh no," I think to myself. He slowly turns his head to the side and vomits all over the floor. Learning main idea has now turned into chaos. Students are bolting from their desks to the front of the classroom, the teacher is moving as if she were shot out of a cannon to the back of the room to get her sick student to the garbage can. Everyone is disgusted, the smell is causing the teacher to gag, and her eyes water. Yet she knows it is her duty to get this kid out of the room and to the nurse. Trying to not look, not touch, and not comment, the teacher gets her student out into the hall. She barks commands to another student to get a custodian immediately.
Sick boy is taken care of, remaining students have gone to their next class, custodians have disinfected the room and the teacher can't stop washing her hands. Did her students learn how to identify main idea today? Probably not, but they will always remember the maggot story.