It was Monday afternoon, 1:15, during that block of time between afternoon recess and freedom. I was valiantly trying to introduce thirty-two rosy cheeked, sweating children–whose heavy breathing filled the room–to the beginnings of the scientific method. The idea was to help them observe–really observe. I gave five brown paper bags (which I had filled with a mystery object and taped shut earlier that morning) to each table of students.

“You are scientists,” I told them. “One of your most important jobs is to observe–to gather as much data as possible in order to figure things out. I want you to observe everything you can about what is inside your table’s brown bag. The only rule is that you cannot look inside.”

Then, with confidence in my newly learned guided inquiry approach, I turned them loose to touch, pry, smell, and explore. Despite many less-than-successful observational attempts, within a few minutes one student decided to smell the bag, which was emitting a strong citrus scent, and exclaimed, “It’s a lemon!” It was not long before all the groups were sniffing their bags, assenting that they too could smell that potent citrus scent wafting from the crinkled paper.

“I’m not asking what it is,” I reminded them. “I am just asking you to observe. That is what you smell. What does it sound like?

“Nothing,” they replied. “We squeezed it and it doesn’t sound like anything.”

“Drop it on your desk,” I prodded. They looked at me in shock, knowing our room operated under order and six-inch whispers. No one moved. Finally, one freckled girl at the far table confidently raised the bag high above her head and let go. I could see a room full of expectant faces, their eyes glued on her, awaiting the lemon’s dull “thump.”

“Thunk!” It landed loudly, startling most of the kids.

“What did that sound like?” I asked.

“A rock!” one boy exclaimed, utterly bewildered.

“Hmm….” I said. “Interesting…”

I wandered around, listening to them revise their guesses from a “lemon” to an “un-ripe lemon.” I prodded them to seek additional information. “Move the bag around so you can see the shape,” I urged.

“It’s round!” came the reply. More hurried whispers. I heard bits of “….jawbreaker…” “They make big Lemonheads…” and “It could still just be a not-ripe lemon.”

Nevertheless, despite one group’s exasperated insistence that the object wasan unripe lemon, one boy at the table continued to carry on his observations with dogged persistence. No matter how many students worked to convince him that they were “Done,” he continued to poke and prod and squeeze, determined to find the truth.

After sufficient observation, we sat down as a class to discuss our findings. One pragmatic girl said, “Well, I smelled it and decided that it smelled like a lemon. I knew that if it really was a lemon, it would squish when I stepped on it, so I put it on the floor and stepped on it. But, it didn’t squish. It hurt my foot. So I knew it couldn’t be a lemon.” Several students nodded in agreement. Others insisted, “Even a lemon that isn’t ripe can be hard.”

As students continued to hypothesize, most concluded the mystery object was probably either a lemon jawbreaker or a giant Lemonhead, though a few students clung resiliently to the idea that it was nothing more than an unripe lemon.

At last, the moment arrived to open the bags. The noise level escalated as hands clamored to rip away the brown paper and finally discover “The Truth.” It is hard to describe the almost tangible shock that filled our room as five plain, white golf balls (along with five Kleenexes, still soggy with lemon extract) emerged from each scented bag. Evident was the newfound awareness that scientific “truths” are not always what our minds tell us they are. In that poignant moment of silence, I asked the students a tricky question: Does truth change?

Thirty-two people, who had almost unanimously assented less than an hour before that we were observing lemons now agreed even more emphatically that these “lemons” were, in fact, golf balls. Yet the truth of what those bags contained had never, ever changed. My students’ ability to discover the truth, however, had.

Kate, dirty sneakers poised to crush her “lemon” before I could reach her, bravely demonstrated that no theory is true until it has been proven. Tyler, with tenacity in his eyes, still thumped, smelled, and felt, despite popular opinion. Jen discovered first-hand what her golf ball sounded like, while her classmates looked on. In their eyes, I saw the potential of Columbus and Edison, Curie, Hawking, and Kahn. They are the visionaries of the future, those who not only see what is, but what also might be.

And who am I? Certainly no Edison or Hawking, Curie or Kahn. I am simply the exhausted, idealistic teacher. Admittedly, there are days where I spend more time surviving long division than shaping the future, days when my passion has burned out long before my career. Those days, I long to take the easy way out, to stand up and factually announce, “Class, today we are studying what is in the brown bag. Smell it. See how it smells like a lemon and feels hard like a lemon? That’s because it’s a lemon.”

As the years pass, this temptation to tell rather than teach will return again and again and again. But I hope in those moments when I question why I teach, why I audaciously believe I can create the thinkers of tomorrow, that I will hear in the back of my mind the faint rustle of brown paper and smell the lingering scent of McCormick lemon extract. And remember. Remember who I really am.

I am the teacher. I am the guide. I am the voice that urges students to keep learning, keep seeking, keep exploring; keep dropping and grinding and smelling and feeling–all the way to the truth. Because truth is out there. And if we are persistent, it will be found.