Rohit Varma heads a $6 million eye study. He works with leading scientists. He can lecture off the top of his head. So shouldn't teaching a class of kindergartners be a snap for him? Not at all. Two years ago, Varma, an ophthalmologist at the University of Southern California, carried a skeleton—dubbed Peter—to his son's kindergarten class. He quickly launched into the basics of bones, making it all the way down to the rib cage before a girl pointedly raised her hand. She wanted to know one thing: Where did the skeleton come from? "Then the dam broke," Varma recalls. Suddenly, another child—and then another—joined in the chorus of questions. Was this a dead person? What happened? How did Varma get hold of the body? Varma shot a look at the teacher. She smiled—and stood back.  continued...

Illustrations: Gary Hovland

Download this story in Acrobat PDF format. (requires Acrobat Reader)

Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
September 2001, pages 18-21.
©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute