Teaching Fourth Graders

Today was a very rewarding day. I received 24 hand-written thank you notes from all the students in the fourth grade class which I attended last week. They had been studying the human body, and so my daughter, who is a member of Mrs. Sommers’ class, asked me if I would make a presentation to the class. Since they had studied muscles and bones last week, and were currently studying the heart, I borrowed a skeleton from the hospital’s community education department, and a heart from the pathology department. Both activities were great hits with the students. 

The black lymph nodes around the heart, caused by cigarette smoking, especially made an impression on them. Many of students commented in their thank you notes that they intended never to smoke. We also listened to each other’s hearts, checked blood pressure, and learned about reflexes. They asked many good questions, such as why does a baby have a soft spot and why the pathology specimen heart was not red. Fourth graders are a perfect age for learning and curiosity, and if I were a teacher I think I’d teach that age. The experience was quite rewarding and the thank you notes were just icing on the cake.