I spent my first 20 years of employment as a teacher. Seven of those years were in Ewing, and the other 13 in Gothenburg, but that was 30 years ago! My last year of teaching was 1994. My students of that year are now 45 – 48-years-old with graduating seniors of their own!

I basically taught anything that dealt with science. At Ewing I taught all the sciences and that gave me a wonderful background in a wide variety of sciences which came in very handy later in life. At Gothenburg, I taught biology, physiology, general science, and astronomy as well as a PE class or two. I loved teaching and only left it because the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District offered me the best job in Nebraska. However, once a teacher, always a teacher.

Why talk about that now? Because it is “Back to School” time. While the first nine weeks were my favorite, they were also very stressful. Because of that I would look forward to the start of school, and in a way, also dread it. Following the first “Back to School Sale” advertisement I would get nightmares. I still do!

The most difficult and time-consuming part about being a science teacher was the labs. Labs may be the best way to teach science, but they take time to plan, time to set up, and time to take down. They can also be dangerous!

An old experiment, that has since been changed, involved showing freshmen the difference between a mixture and a compound. You mixed iron filings and sulfur together into a mixture. You can easily separate the mixture with a magnet pulling all the iron filings out as well as using a chemical I won’t name due to its dangerous properties, to dissolve the sulfur, leaving the iron. You then heat the mixture of iron and sulfur, and a chemical change occurs forming iron sulfide. The compound has different properties from its components and the resulting iron sulfide is not affected by either the magnet or the chemical.

We were conducting the iron-sulfur lab one fall day and after using that chemical to either dissolve the sulfur or attempt to dissolve the iron sulfide the students would pour the remains of the chemical down the sink. The chemical was highly volatile. To heat the mixture of iron and sulfur in order to make the iron sulfide we used Bunsen burners. I used a match to light one of the student’s burners and then I tossed the match into the sink. The chemical we were dumping into the sink not only ignited, the fumes from the chemical had permeated throughout the entire plumbing system of the lab and into the plumbing of the lab in the next classroom where students were learning chemistry. Fire shot out of every sink in the two labs along with a fairly loud explosive noise.

Three things about the experience. First, Rex, a great kid, but a somewhat ornery student, threw up his hands and yelled, “I didn’t do it!” Secondly, the chemistry teacher set a world’s record getting from her class to mine to see what had caused the eruption of fire from every sink in her lab, and third…I quit doing that particular lab! Now you understand about the nightmares!