"If I Taught Biology"

By Christine Stoddard

If I taught an introductory biology class, nobody would ever have to memorize the cycles
crucial to cellular respiration, the elements present in chlorophyl, or which genes code
for which proteins. I would make biology fun, relevant, and stress-free. I'm tired of
memorizing the names and functions of enzymes or studying the principles of organic
chemistry. I plan on becoming a professional bum (what better description for a working
writer and artist?), not a nurse or geneticist. I spend most of my time in biology class
writing about or drawing animals, humans, and plants than I do thinking about all the
teeny components that make them work. After all, how much does an art or humanities
student need to know RNA? The extra-inquisitive ones will research whatever I, the
professor, don't explain, and the rest will rely on doctors' advice for the rest of their
existence, anyway.

Here is a sample lab and lecture period from my hypothetical class; you'll soon see that
my re-design of Bio 101 is perfectly reasonable:

Hello, everyone; my name is Professor Stoddard, but feel free to call me Christine. I
earned my PhD, but I'm not so insecure that I have to remind you all that I have thirty
years of experience in scientific academia compared to your measly thirteen in grade
school every time you break a beaker. I won't bother providing any further information
about myself since I know you all checked me out on Ratemyteacher.com and will
probably Google me later tonight. If you want to learn more about my personal life, go
on Facebook, but don't friend me until AFTER the class has ended. Otherwise, you're
just sucking up and I hate suck-ups almost as much as I do explaining karoytyping.
Anyway, your syllabus is available on Blackboard, but I'm sure at least half of you have
already bookmarked it on your browser. Anyone who'd like a paper copy is a tree-killer.
This is Biology, not Business. We aren't selfish here. I don't ever want to witness my
students contributing to the further deterioration of our planet Earth.

Now that I've told you the basics about this class, let's get down to what your tuition
pays for, because I could talk about the how this class works all the day. But you're all
familiar with things like citations and the Honor Code, blah, blah, blah. I won't waste
your time.

Biology is the study of life. That includes me, you, the wilted plant in the corner of the
classroom, and the upside-down goldfish in that tank by the window. I thought we would
begin by studying something that's actually alive. Except for this very sentence, I
promise never to utter the word 'monosaccharide' in this class. I want to teach you
about life with something that you can see and touch, not simply imagine based upon
poorly rendered depictions of molecules in some fifty-pound textbook. So, as you can
see, there are several bunnies in the back of the room.
Wait, don't get up. Sit down. I'm the Alpha here. Pay attention to my instructions. I want
each of you to go to the back of the room and grab a bunny. Then return to your lab
bench and press your head very gently to the bunny's chest. You should hear the
bunny's heartbeat. If not, you picked up a dead bunny. Bunnies, like human beings
contain what is called a closed circulatory system. That circulatory system includes a
heart.

After you hear the bunny's heartbeat, please write a paragraph about why you like
bunnies and then a second paragraph about what changes to your lifestyle you will
make to ensure that bunnies continue to thrive in this world. Remember that you, as an
upper-middle class suburban kid attending a private college, contribute a Yeti-sized
carbon footprint. If you continue to be so self-centered by drinking bottled water and
driving around in an SUV all by yourself during rush-hour, all the bunnies will go
prematurely extinct, along with all the other animals on earth. Sort of like dinosaurs,
except that this time you'll be partially responsible for it.

Now get to work.

[Students do as instructed, behaving perfectly respectfully and asking intelligent

questions when necessary.]

Now that you have all completed the "bunny-heart" assignment, let's proceed to
discussing the concept of food chains. I want everyone to look at the flowers in the far
left corner of the room. See? Those are clovers. I grew them without any pesticides.
Your parents probably pay hundreds of dollars to have professional gardeners and
landscapers remove them from your yard so you can plant expensive, exotic flowers
with long Asian names nobody but Chinese people can pronounce instead. That's
because your parents are pathetically bourgeois and are more concerned about
keeping up appearances than maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Bunnies, such as the
ones whose heartbeats you heard this morning, eat flowers like clovers. If you put
chemicals on the flowers, the bunnies may die from eating them. Keep in mind that you
just wrote a whole paragraph about why you like bunnies. Assuming that you are not a
lying little twit, bunnies are dear to you. They should be dear to everyone in this room.
Why? Because bunnies are living things. Anyone who dislikes living things should drop
this class immediately. Take physics instead. You'll learn a lot about throwing rocks but I
guarantee you that you won't be studying sex.

Class dismissed. Oh, and bring licorice whips tomorrow. We're going to be constructing
replicas of DNA. On Wednesday, we'll be reading nature poetry and on Thursday we're
releasing all of the animals from the local zoo. No class Friday.