A reporter for the Destin Log in northwest Florida, Fraser Sherman has sold short stories to Realms of Fantasy, Tales of the Talisman and Allegory Ezine. He's also the author of the film reference books Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan and The Wizard of Oz Catalog. For more information, visit Fraser's blog.

MONDAY

“But it’s true, Ms. Chaison!” Jason Rule flung up his hands in one of his trademark dramatic gestures. “Everyone knows rotting meat just naturally grows maggots!”

“Oh?” Adjusting her glasses, Lauren Chaison pointed at the terrarium holding the rancid pork chops Jason and Kat had been assigned for the experiment. “It’s been a week, and I don’t see a single maggot in there.”

“There should be!” Even knowing Jason’s temperament ran choleric, Lauren thought he sounded overly intense. Was he into dipping ginger or cumin for an energy boost? “Everyone knows --”

Never mind. Focus on the lesson. “There’s no ‘everyone knows’ in science, and there’s no ‘should.’ Only ‘is’ or ‘isn’t’ and the reasons why.” Jason’s eye-roll reminded her she’d already used that phrase twice this week. “What are the reasons spontaneous generation didn’t occur?”

Across the room, School Board member Maggie Green gave an officious grunt and scribbled in her notebook. Lauren tried to ignore her.

“How should I know?” Jason ran a hand through his unruly raven hair, scrutinizing the chops. “It only takes a day or two to generate maggots at home. And only five minutes in the cafeteria.” Giggles swept the lab. “It should have --” Lauren shot him the glare she’d been refining all semester. “I mean, I don’t have a hypothesis.”

“Kat?” Lauren asked. The plump Asian American shook her head. “Anyone else?” Lauren cast her eyes around the class, paying no attention to the lovesick expression on Fred Whittaker’s face. “Well, Jason, what do you think? Is your theory flawed, or your experiment?”

“Theory?” Maggie Green said sharply. “Spontaneous generation is a fact. Even a first-year natural philosophy class teaches that.”

“This is experimental science, Mrs. Green,” Lauren replied.

“But she’s right,” Jason said. “Aristotle proved logically that the vital force in decaying meat generates maggots.”

“Except it didn’t.” Lauren pointed at the terrarium again. “Why not? That’s what science teaches us, how natural philosophy applies in the real world. In this room, quoting the Greek Fathers isn’t enough. I want hands-on proof.” Jason looked worried -- probably more about what a failed experiment might do to his GPA -- and Mrs. Green wrote furiously in her notebook. Lauren glanced up at the clock. “Okay, class, your assignment for Thursday’s lab is to bring back at least three testable hypotheses --” The bell rang. “-- and that’s testable, not speculative.”

“We won’t let you down, ma’am.” Fred, looking like he’d sooner die than disappoint, began whispering to Jason as they filed out. Lauren reminded herself hopeless crushes were normal for high melancholics.

Within a minute, the lab was empty except for Lauren and Mrs. Green.

“You do realize Aristotle knew that spontaneous generation didn’t happen every time,” Green said, frowning. “If your students don’t know the classics, shouldn’t you correct them?”

“If the bell hadn’t been about to ring, sure.” Great, a hardline classicist. Lauren wished she’d taken an extra fish-oil capsule before class to keep her temper under control. “But the point is for them to realize that the terrarium’s in the dark most of the time, and the maggots won’t form without enough sunlight to charge the meat with more energy, replacing what’s been lost through entropy.”

“And the point of this -- experiment?” Green said it like a four-letter word. “Must I remind you that the FedCAT is in three weeks? The Natural Philosophy section of the test focuses solely on how vital force affects the human body, not --”

“I cover that when I teach natural philosophy. In the classroom. This is lab time. It’s meant for science experiments.”

“Experiments are not on the test. Studying the things that are would be a more productive use of ‘lab time’.” Green waved her pen at the terrariums. “In my day, a good teacher could cover spontaneous generation with one class on Aristotle, and no need to waste time handling dead meat.”

“May I point out Aristotle never fathomed the nature of vital force? It was Maxwell, a scientist, who figured it out, using the experimental method.” Like a good classicist, Green scowled. Lauren forced herself to smile. “I know it used to be enough to quote the philosophers and ignore science, but that was back when studying literature meant rote memorization of The Song of Hiawatha.”

“So you object to studying classics of literature as well as natural philosophy? Not trendy enough for a girl like yourself?”

“Girl?” Lauren, took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was years from tenure. “Mrs. Green, nobody who takes science seriously can ignore what the Greek Fathers accomplished through logic and observation alone. Experimental science doesn’t reject the Greeks, it builds on their work.” God, if she could make Green see, make her understand --

“Of course science has its uses, Ms. Chaison, but it has no relevance in this school district. Students here at Immanuel Kant go on to the Ivy Leagues, to careers in law, natural philosophy or art. I do not see any reason science should be part of a natural philosophy class instead of staying where it belongs, in VoTech.”

“That’s precisely the kind of thinking I want to change.” Lauren adjusted her glasses again to keep from pounding her fists on the counter. “Parents here should be proud if their kids want careers in science --”

“What you’re spending hours of lab time to teach them could be conveyed in five minutes of reading Ptolemy,” Green said. “I realize your own past career as a scientist may have blurred your judgment, but don’t you think your lab could be used for something more useful? Upgrading their essay skills for the FedCAT, perhaps, or devoting time to sex education?”

“They have sex ed, they have writing classes! That’s not what I teach!”

“You teach what you’re told to teach, Ms. Chaison.” Green’s lips pinched tight for a second. “Admittedly, a majority of the board accepted Principal Maroken’s arguments for including science in the curriculum, but I’m confident they’ll revise their thinking with time. And surely you’d agree an extra class or two driving home key moral principles couldn’t hurt, don’t you agree?”

Green waited expectantly, but Lauren couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get her fired.

“Natural philosophy does prove that masturbation drains the body of vital force,” Green said at last. “And that imbalancing our humors with excessive spice consumption can trigger dangerous levels of sexual arousal. Don’t you think that’s appropriate material for your class?”

“If it was accurate, sure, but those abstinence courses the school has to teach are crap! The sexual effect’s mostly psychosomatic; kids would need half a cup of cumin or cinnamon to get any hornier than they are already. And masturbation’s not a problem unless carried to excess, say ten or --”

“So you believe stimulating teenagers’ natural lust is acceptable as long as it’s a slight stimulation?” Green’s pen poised over her notebook. “Do you think teenage girls get 'slightly' pregnant?”

“You know, Mrs. Green --” Lauren heard the words coming out of her mouth but couldn’t quite stop them. “-- there are some repressed people who’d be a lot happier if they did take a little extra spice now and then.”

TUESDAY

“I did not lose control, Steve.” Sitting in Principal Steve Maroken’s office, Lauren downed her second buttermilk of the morning. Nothing cools choler like Branson Buttermilk! “I didn’t say she was repressed herself -- ”

“Yet somehow, that’s the implication she took away.” Steve scratched under his ineffective mustache.

“Well, I almost said something about the cobwebs between her thighs, but I held it in. See? Total control.”

“Have you considered increasing your fish-oil intake?”

“I was well-behaved, I swear. I mean, considering the provocation.”

“I know Green’s a prude and a prune, but she is a board member.” Steve set down his coffee cup, shaking his head. “You can’t afford to antagonize the board if you want to keep the labs going.”

“You knew I qualified as a high-choleric when you hired me. And if I take any more fish oil, I’ll grow gills, I swear.”

“After remembering some of your fights with Derry before the divorce -- ”

“They were one hundred percent his fault. His temperament’s worse than mine.” Lauren tossed off the rest of her buttermilk. “Okay, ninety percent his fault.”

“Lauren, Immanuel Kant needs your lab, no matter how much the classicists hate to admit it. Japan and the other Asian nations don’t see science as blue-collar work; if we can’t interest more top students in research careers, America’s going to fall behind in electronics, biotech, applied physics -- ”

“I agree with you, remember? That’s why I took a pay cut to teach here after Powell retired.” Okay, and because after the divorce I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Derry every day at work. “Then the board cut me to two labs a week, so they could squeeze in an abstinence-only lecture, and even in the classroom, half the time’s devoted to FedCAT cramming, half for the state standardized test. So much for covering the Fathers.”

“Given a choice between classics and the added funding good test scores will give us, even Green’s flexible. And speaking of abstinence, what did you say that convinced Green you support teenage sex?”

“She’s taking my words out of context.” The buttermilk must have kicked in, she felt relatively calm about it. “I admit I might have said something about how the district’s zero-tolerance policy on kids bringing their own spices must have been written by a brain-dead moron --”

“Chairman Strohm, actually. Fortunately for you, Green does think he’s a moron -- but Lauren, any kid with a legitimate need to rebalance their humors can go through the school spicer. That’s not such a bad policy.”

“Have you tried to lift the state guidelines for spicers? It’s not a book, it’s a boulder! Even Doris Schwartz doesn’t qualify for medical ginger and she’s the highest phlegmatic I’ve ever seen. If she didn’t ginger herself up -- and you know she does -- she’d be inert by fifth period.”

“True. There’s a few kids it makes more sense to turn a blind eye to --”

“That’s hypocritical, Steve. It’s everything we said we weren’t going to become, back in college.”

“I know the policy’s primarily to cover our butts, but stay in teaching a while and you’ll see our butts need it.” Steve stood and stretched, kneading the kink out of his bad shoulder. “When things go wrong in school, it’s not just a mistake, it’s incompetence. Always. And it’s so much easier for parents to blame the spices -- and us -- than admit their kids don’t want to stay virgins.

“New topic.” Steve sat back down abruptly. “You’re going before the School Board on Thursday.”

“You said you smoothed it over with Green!”

“Not about that. Lay in some extra fish oil, because knowing how you feel about this, your choler’s going through the roof.”

WEDNESDAY

“Experimental Science for Dummies?” Quentin Chaison finished adjusting his silk tie and picked up the book from the bargain table. “See, little sister, I always knew it.”

“Ha-ha.” Lauren snatched the book away and flipped through it. With a grimace, she picked up the remaining half-dozen copies. “Screw the title, it still looks better than those 20-year-old textbooks I’m stuck with. None of them capture the excitement of a really interesting hands-on experiment the way --”

“I hope you realize Mom still hasn’t gotten over the shock,” Quentin said as they meandered back towards the coffee shop. “Bad enough you chose a declassé career, now it’s a declassé career with a pay cut.”

“Quentin, I actually had to turn students away who wanted this class, I swear. I think that’s pretty exciting.”

It had felt that way at the start of the school year, at least: Applied science had no cool factor nor academic luster, so she’d assumed anyone who signed up for lab work had to be on fire for science, the way she’d been in high school. Steve’s right, I was green. Her predecessor had been an easy grader passing time to retirement; his Natural Philosophy class had been a sure A for everyone, a cherished treasure in the academic pressure-cooker of Immanuel Kant. But what my brother doesn’t know, he can’t pass on to Mom.

“Exciting?” Quentin shifted the ungraded papers on the table so Lauren had space to put the books next to her mocha latte. “To a woman who had a first-rate education in natural philosophy, music, literature --”

“You see that pile of research proposals? Maybe one of them will show me the next Crick or Maxwell or Schrodinger.” And maybe Green will offer me tenure tomorrow. “Go find that salesclerk with the boobs that you were looking for. I’ve got work to grade.”

THURSDAY

“Aren’t scientists supposed to be open minded?” the attorney said with a knowing smirk. “Why would you object to including the Fossil Design viewpoint in your classes?”

“Science and natural philosophy don’t deal in viewpoints, they deal with provable facts,” Lauren said. She’d had three capsules of fish oil before entering the board chambers, and she still wanted to slap the dope. “And everyone agrees Leonardo DaVinci had the facts right when he deduced that fossils form from the vital force lingering inside the earth, just as maggots form out of flesh. In fact, DaVinci’s essay in the Leicester Codex is widely considered one of the finest works of natural philosophy since the Greek Fathers --”

“Yet you still call it a theory.” The attorney smiled at the board members, sitting on the dais. “So it’s unproven.”

“No, that would be a hypothesis. In natural philosophy, a hypothesis only becomes a theory when the chain of logical reasoning proves capable of withstanding refutation. Fossil Design supporters have tried for over a hundred years to refute DaVinci, and they've failed.”

This isn’t teaching. I should be in the lab instead of spouting sixth-grade lessons at this idiot. The substitute’s probably turned it into an FedCAT study hall.

The attorney raised an eyebrow. “Surely reason suggests that the Earth’s vital force couldn’t have randomly formed fossils that resemble animal skeletons without some design to channel it. And wouldn’t reason therefore suggest a designer?”

“A designer whose creations look like no known animal, except when they’re defective copies of known animals?” Lauren snorted. “Why not throw in Huxley’s theory that extinct giant monsters once walked the Earth?” Someone snickered. “Fossil design just recycles the Staticist theory that Earth hasn’t changed since God placed all the rock formations in the Earth at the dawn of time, even though we know the earth’s vital force has reshaped the continents themselves.”

“We know this how?”

“Geology. A science.”

The annoying smirk again. “So, Ms. Chaison, you’d prefer gross physical research to the elegance of a creditable natural philosophy theory?”

“Fossil Design isn’t creditable, and it isn’t elegant.” Stick to the strategy: As long as I make it about the Greeks and the Fathers, the board should be on my side. “Creditable theories don’t conflict with science, they never have.”

“And if they do, that means we should believe science over philosophy?” His smile said he believed he’d scored a winning point. “Crude empirical study over pure reason? Come now, which would you choose if you were on the board?”

“Truth.” The fish oil’s working, I haven’t once told this guy he’s full of shit! “DaVinci’s reasoning and empirical evidence, crude or not, confirm each other. And they confirm Aristotle’s thoughts on the nature of the world, of course.”

FRIDAY

“. . .so on Tuesday, we’ll put one pork chop in the sun, one under the heater and one under the little lamp,” Jason said. “That way, we find out if it’s light, heat or solar energy that does it.” His hands went up again. “But what’s the point, ma’am? We know it’s sunlight; Kat’s dad told her yesterday.”

“The point,” Lauren sighed, “is that with the experimental method you prove it yourself, you don’t just trust to what Kat’s father said.”

“He wouldn’t lie, Ms. Chaison!” Kat protested. “He just thought it would get us a better grade if we knew -- ”

“I know he didn’t lie. I meant that’s not the way science works. Instead of going by what the Greek Fathers or anyone else said, we test things out.”

“So we have to do an experiment to prove something we already know?” Jason said blankly.
“Only when you’re in class, Jason. If you had a career in science, you’d be trying to prove something nobody knows.” Yeah, like that's going to happen. She’d yet to meet a student excited by the prospect. “But you have to toddle before you can walk.

Is it me? Am I just a crappy teacher? Didn’t Steve say there’d be one kid in every class who’d make the bullshit worthwhile?

I think he lied.

At least the board hadn’t added Fossil Design to the curriculum. And Green had even complimented her after the hearing, if saying she had “at least basic knowledge of the classics” counted as a compliment.

Perhaps the kid’ll come along next semester. Heck, Jason had the right idea for an experiment, and that’s something. “Get out your lab books. Turn to page 63, the section on growing the maggots and mating them with flies born of normal reproduction. . .”