the best gimmick: straight up fire

My science teacher, a woman me and my classmates loved for the four years she taught us, saw after the first days of class we didn't seem that engaged in or excited at the prospect of studying basic biology.  So, one day, even though it had nothing to do with the unit we had just begun, we walked in to see a table covered in some sort of liquid. Behind it stood our petite 5 foot teacher, matches in one yellow gloved hand, and lab glasses pulling her short hair behind her ears.  She then lit the table on fire, it blazed for a whole 20 seconds, and then died out.  Our eyes were wide, and ever time we blinked we could see dancing flames flashing at us. We marveled at the untouched black surface, still clutching our books to our chests. Every first week of school after that, we would come in, and we would get some sort of flammable trick to look forward to, and hey it must have worked because science was never anyone's least favorite subject.