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 4 of 4
Marilyn Kellogg, the career adviser at SST, says such internships are integral. "It makes students much more motivated – they have a better sense of what they need to know," she says.
Kelley was called into a surprise assembly at SST last fall to be named the state's teacher of the year, based on a committee's review of nominations from students, teachers, and administrators. Everyone from the superintendent to her husband was in the audience as she was awarded a $3,000 grant. She's already used part of it to buy new equipment for the lab. She'll use her bully pulpit to boost science education in lower grades.
Matthew Kramer was in Kelley's first class at SST. Now he's a junior at UNH, double majoring in microbiology and business. "The unique thing about what she's doing ... is that she starts teaching a lot of high-level procedures that you probably wouldn't learn till you're a junior in college," Mr. Kramer says by phone.
He's ahead of his classmates in the lab because of that, he says, and he found that classes like organic chemistry made a lot more sense because he could see how the information would be applied. "You absorb the knowledge a lot better."
Kramer hopes someday to start his own biotech company. If he does, you can be sure that fact will be up on Kelley's Wall of Fame faster than you can say "DNA."
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