Are you my mother?

As many of you know, this year I took on/got suckered into teaching AP Biology. There have been very few decisions in my life that I truly, wholeheartedly, regret making...and if you were to have asked me (which some of you, poor, unforturnate souls, did) a few months ago if teaching AP Biology would be #1 on that short list, I would have agreed without hesitation!! But...I have since owned the fact that I am the AP Biology teacher, like it or not, and I can run around kicking and screaming about it and still nothing is going to change the fact that I am teaching this class; much to the chagrin of myself AND the students, who all thought they would have the previous teacher. It may have taken us a semester to warm up to each other and THE CLASS but I can say with confidence that we do have an appreciation for each other that was not there last semester. I believe this change of attitude came in the form of a restructuring of the class. Once I realized I had no way out of it, I decided to stop using the prefab lectures, which STUNK, and started writing my own and adding in supplemental actives that did not require formal lab reports! We are all thrilled about that!! Besides that we are discussing some of my favorite topics at the moment, in the form of biotechnology...though we will abruptly leave the bliss of genetics, where I find I have a higher degree of confidence in my knowledge of the topic, for areas where I could use some brushing up...or really, if we get GUT LEVEL HONEST...some LEARNING of the topics in general...phylogeny/development...I think I just threw up in my mouth at the mere thought of it!! So anyway...pretty much none of that had anything to do with my original reason for writing! Friday, the final end of a long week, in which I had come down with yet another student induced ailment, and I am convinced of this..."Mrs. Kunz can barrow your stapler...can I use your hole punch...can I use...COUGH, COUGH, SNIFF, WIPE...here is my homework from when I was sick..." YEAH...they know I blame them! So there I was with a sore throat and barely understandable when I spoke...LIKE A MAN!! It was late in the afternoon and I was preparing to give the greatest lesson of my teaching career!! I had no choice but to sacrifice my health and well-being for my students, whom I hold so dear to my heart! We had just spent the week talking about DNA technology, gene cloning, gel electrophoresis, polymerase chain reactions...and we were about to do an activity on DNA fingerprinting, in which they were given a scenario where a couple was convinced that the child they were given at the hospital was not their child but was switched at birth. The title of the activity was of course, "Are You my Mother?" In an ever so clever attempt to introduce the activity, I pulled my desk chair around the front of the classroom and pulled out the children's book "Are You my Mother?" The actions that followed were nothing short of astonishing. All the girls in the classroom joyfulling and with great anticipation, pushed the desks out of the way and made space on the floor to sit in a semicircle around my chair. So there I was encircled by my high school junior/senior AP Biology students, while I read with gusto and intense emotion AND with all the impressions of the cow, and the dog, and the SNORT...they have never been more engaged in what I was saying as they were while I read P.D. Eastman's classic "Are You my Mother?" At the completion of the story and requests for an encore reading, the comments were made "...that was the best story telling...you should have been a preschool teacher..." If only they knew...