The Bell Jar

A bell jar is an objet d'art and a beautifully simple method of execution - I should know. I watched something die right before my eyes underneath one.

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As a junior in high school, I took AP Biology. The teacher, whom I had for freshman honors biology, was on the older side. He had a reputation for being a maverick. The most senior member of his department and nearly the entire faculty, he did what he wanted both curriculum-wise and behaviorally.

Despite his experience in the classroom, he didn't follow the AP curriculum necessary to prepare a class for success on a competitive standardized exam. What he did provide were a bizarre series of tasks, many nearly impossible to excel in, let alone complete. Our class dissected feral cats for months in an attempt to study anatomy. We hunted insects and mounted them as "entomological research." Our class also incubated chicken eggs to fruition as a study of embryology, hatching 20 or so chicks at the end of the experiment. As the noise of the peeping hatchlings filled the room, we students cooed and ahhed over their fluffy cuteness. However, it soon became apparent that one of the chicks had a massive anatomical deformity  - it lacked fully functional hipbones. The chick, eager to follow its flock, pushed itself along with its feet. 20 sixteen to eighteen year olds encouraged it to

keep on keeping on, while spitballing ideas of how to fashion a wheelchair out of classroom items so it could get around more easily.

Amidst the hubbub, our teacher  went into his supply closet, returning with a bell jar and a bottle of clear liquid. He gently picked up the animal while barking orders at the lot of us to clean up and sit down. He placed the chick on the center of the black lab table he used for demonstrations at the front of the room. Then he poured a bit of the liquid onto a rag, placed it next to the struggling chick, and carefully clamped the bell jar over the tableau. The chick peeped a few times, first normally, then frantically, and finally there was silence. He swept the chick up in the rag and carefully placed the newly dead animal in the trashcan. The class sat - riveted and horrified. No one dares to speak out. The day's lesson after the shocking moment carried on as normal, and the whole ordeal was brushed away with a "that's that" mentality.

I will never forget that moment in his class. Not because I think he was incredibly wrong but because his actions were so matter of fact. Was there a lesson here or no real thought put into what he did that day? What did he expect of us? Had he hope there'd be a confrontation, an outburst? Was he without compassion or was what he did the compassionate thing to do? 
In the moment, I saw him as cruel, though in the back of my mind I knew that he was probably right since there was no hope for that chick to live a normal life. Now I see him as a teacher who missed out on an opportunity to explain something very real to his students. He didn't explain his actions or thought process to us at all. Not that he necessarily owed it to us for most of the choices he made, it was his classroom, a different era in education, etc, etc, but as someone who just snuffed out a life in front of us, he definitely did owe us something more. As a teacher now, I think about what I say and do in front of my students. Likely they will not remember a word I said about the Gilded Age or sustainability or 1848, but if they take anything away, it would hopefully be to treat others with respect, care and as thinking, feeling beings. That moment of non-explanation on his part demonstrated a lack of respect for us as competent, rational individuals. He let an opportunity for a human connection with his students slip past; he chose not to go there. I could respect his rationale if I knew it, but I will never know.


“Kids don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”  -Jim Henson