I’m not a science teacher. However, as the “secondary teacher” and “lead teacher” of a three-teacher school (two classroom and one special education), I had no choice regarding middle school science. For this group (six kids ranging from fifth to eighth grade), I had to wing it.

I knew that nobody would judge me too harshly if I just assigned readings and end-of-section questions from the textbook, but that got wearisome even for me. So one day I said, “Let’s do science projects!” I told the kids to choose something related to physical science that was reasonably safe and easy to do. Young Jimmy said he wanted to make a lamp out of a pickle. I read up on the topic and saw that it had been done many times without electrical fires or loss of teaching credentials, so I agreed.

Setting up the project was terrifying, at least it was to a person who has to fight the notion that electricity is actually some form of voodoo. First we had to cut the cord off an old lamp. Then, we took the cut end of the cord and peeled off all the plastic insulation, leaving the bare copper wires. These we twisted into two separate strands, each of which we stuck firmly into either end of the pickle. Then (Oh, my heart!), we cautiously plugged the cord into an outlet in the classroom. The pickle began to glow in a most satisfactory manner. We turned the lights off for greater effect.

Jimmy was pleased with his results and cheerfully wrote about the experience in his science journal. But then he murmured, “I wonder if it would work with a potato?”

Would it? Emboldened by our success with the pickle, I agreed to try it. We removed the wires from the pickle and attached them to Jimmy’s potato. (Apparently he had brought a big box of assorted vegetables in the hope that he might make many kinds of lamps.) Anyway, the wise little monkey who sits on my shoulder tried unsuccessfully to get my attention as we carefully plugged the cord back into the wall. 

For a split second nothing happened, and then there was a huge bang, and the lights went out all over the building. I screamed “Shit!”, thereby raising my career total of swearing-in-front-of-the-class to two. I pulled the cord out of the wall as quickly as possible, but the breaker was well and truly thrown. I shakily called the District Office, trying to skate around what had actually happened. It was about three hours before someone arrived to reset the breaker. In retrospect, I could probably have done it myself with a bit of coaching. But for the moment, I just wasn’t in the mood.