Having a teacher who’ll go the extra mile is a great way to get kids engaged in their studies.
That’s just what Verónica Duque was trying to do when she gave her students a full-body anatomy class – dressed in a full-body anatomy suit.
The 43-year-old teacher dressed for the occasion, donning an outfit that mapped out what the human body looks like under the surface.
Elementary school kids working with anatomy model. Credit: Wavebreak Media ltd / Alamy
As well as muscle and bones, the suit gave students an up close and personal look at where their teacher’s organs would sit if they could see under her skin.
A picture of Verónica teaching in the suit went viral after her husband Michael posted it on Twitter.
“Very proud of this full of ideas woman that I am lucky to have as a wife,” he wrote, adding: “Today she taught anatomy to her students in a very original way. The kids went crazy!”
Muy orgulloso de este volcán de ideas que tengo la suerte de tener como mujer😊😊
Hoy ha explicado el cuerpo humano a sus alumnos de una manera muy original👍🏻
Y los niños flipando🤣🤣
Grande Verónica!!!👏🏻👏🏻😍😍 pic.twitter.com/hAwqyuujzs— Michael (@mikemoratinos) December 16, 2019
In response to the amazing display, Twitter users heaped praise upon the teacher.
“That’s thinking out of the box wish we had more like her,” one person replied.
A second added [translated]: “It is fortunate to have professionals of this caliber, always seeking to leave their mark on their students.”
Amazingly, Verónica is not the only teacher to come up with the teaching method – as it was also adopted by Dutch biology teacher Debby Heerkens back in 2015:
Per CNN, Heerkens removed layers showing muscle and skeletal structure in the human body, as well as organs. “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,” she told CNN.
In an interview with Bored Panda, Verónica opened up about why she decided to don the unconventional teaching aid.
“I’ve been teaching for 15 years now,” the third-grade teacher explained, adding: “I teach natural and social science, art, as well as English and Spanish.”
She went on to reveal that she first saw the anatomy suit in an advert online.
“I was surfing the internet when an ad of an AliExpress swimsuit popped up. Knowing how hard it is for kids this young to visualize the disposition of internal organs, I thought it was worth it giving it a try,” she explained.
A teacher teaching students anatomy. Credit: Stop Images GmbH / Alamy
Meanwhile, this certainly isn’t the last time Verónica will be getting dressed up to help her students learn. She revealed that she has plans to use disguises to teach history and crowns to teach grammar.
“I decided long ago to use disguises for history lessons. I’m also using cardboard crowns for my students to learn grammatical categories such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Different grammar kingdoms, so to say,” she said.
“I’d like society to stop considering teachers to be lazy bureaucratic public servants. We’re certainly not,” the teacher added.
