Mummies, Myth, and Magic

Mummies, Myth, and Magic is the title for a book I used during my summer school class. This year I decided to bring Egypt back after a one-year hiatus.

Three years ago I got really tired of hearing the kids try to out-pharaoh each other. I had two kids that sad in the back reading Harry Potter books because they thought that I wasn't teaching them anything that they didn't already know.

This year I decided to bring Egypt back though, mostly because I like teaching it. It's my basic rule of thumb -- I try to teach mostly things that I like. You've got a 50/50 shot with things that I find boring, like say, the Green Revolution of rural India.

During my lesson about mummification I get to be pretty gory. I told the kids that most of the internal organs were taken out through a small incision in the abdomen. At one point I thought that I heard a faint grown, but I kept going.

The I got to the best part -- you know, the removal of the brain. I just had started explaining how the priests pushed a metal hook up through the back of the nose into the cranial cavity when I saw a kid doubled over. I, of course, thought he was a drama queen pretending to be grossed out, so I kept going.

I told the class about taking the hook and scrambling up the brain. My class was giggling with delight. Even if they already knew what was going to happen to the guy's brain they were loving it. I had the kids right where I wanted them -- I was on fire.

Then there was a thud. I looked around and there was the drama queen, flat on his back. Actually, he wasn't flat on his back, he was sprawled over his neighbor's backpack. The other kids said, "Get up. Quit faking it."

Except he didn't get up. He was out cold, eyes rolling up into the skull, faint groaning emerging from his mouth. When he came to he told the nurse, "The teacher was talking about something really gross." Apparently the kid almost fainted at the Science Museum when someone was talking about dissecting a cow eyeball. Not actually doing it -- mind you -- TALKING about doing it.

It's a good thing I didn't get to finish my lesson. I was going to tell the class that poor people in ancient Egypt couldn't afford good embalming, so their internal organs were removed through the butt hole.

I'll save that one for later.