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Teacher of the Year makes science real
New Hampshire's Carolyn Kelley uses 'the new three-Rs approach' to education: rigor, relevance, and relationship.
from the March 1, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
They come to her from six regional high schools, spending 90 minutes a day doing work that can earn them college credits. Kelley applied for grants to create a lab that rivals those at research universities.
When Kelley started biotech at SST in 2001 after working in private industry, it was the first of several high-tech programs that turned around an enrollment slump, says Principal Nancy Pierce. With about 99 percent of her students going on to four-year colleges, Kelley has helped eliminate out-of-date perceptions that career and technical schools (formerly known as vocational) are for kids who lag academically.
"The kids just adore her, and she doesn't make it easy on them," Ms. Pierce says. "She doesn't have to give lots of quizzes to check on their knowledge, because she makes it so urgent that they know they need to learn this in order to do what they want to do."
Sharing a lab bench with three classmates, Kaila Phillips pours half of a yellowish liquid into a second test tube. From across the room, Kelley calls out a reminder to pour over the sink, and Kaila quickly moves to comply. "In the beginning, I honestly thought that I wasn't going to like this class," Kaila says, "but about a week into it, I'm like, 'Wow, this is really cool!' I'm all science-y now." She thinks she'll be either a nurse or a pharmacist.
Across the bench, Sean Kelley (no relation) says his teacher "keeps everything exciting and new. She'll put up slide shows of current events, so she relates everything that's going on in the world right now to what we're doing in the lab." When the nation's attention was fixed on E. coli in spinach, "we had it in Petri dishes in front of us," he says. "She trusts us."
The organisms are attenuated and safe for student use, Kelley explains, but to the kids, it's still a motivator. "It makes you grow up just a little bit quicker," says Samantha Pettipost.
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