Teacher Strips Down To Give Kids A Lesson In Anatomy

A high school teacher in the Netherlands is getting a lot of attention for the surprising way she decided to teach her students about anatomy: she stood up on her desk and stripped down — to the coolest anatomy suit you’ve ever laid eyes on. (Well, probably the only anatomy suit you’ve ever laid eyes on.)

“At first they were a little bit in shock because they thought ‘the teacher is taking off her clothes,’ until, they saw what was underneath,” Heerkens told CNN.

Debby Heerkens, a gym and biology teacher at Groene Hart Rijnwoude school, in the small town of Hazerswoude Dorp, Netherlands wore several layers under her clothes: one that showed the skeletal system and one that showed the muscles and organs. She told CNN that after teaching for several years she felt she needed to figure out a way to keep students more engaged. It worked. There’s a video of her revealing her “lesson plan,” and the students look seriously amused.

She spent her own time and money looking for and purchasing this cool interactive “teaching tool.” And it worked! The kids are captivated. The closest we ever got to seeing muscles and organs on a “real” figure was one of those creepy plastic human body forms they have in every high school. Getting to see the bone and muscle placement on a real body is a pretty cool idea.

This story shows the kind of dedication teachers have to their students. They want to reach their students, they want them to be interested. The kids are transfixed because Heerkens brainstormed a cool idea she no doubt used her own time and money to execute. The story is trending because it’s not every day we see a teacher stripping down to skeletal yoga pants and jumping on a desk in front of her kids. Do our intestines really take up that much space? Even I’m learning something from her stunt.

I’m impressed.