When I was a little girl, adults would ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would reply, without flinching, "Wonder Woman." Imagine how tricky it became to navigate my career path when I realized that becoming a super hero wasn't actually an option.
I am grown up (well most of the time), but I am still impressed and inspired by strong, honest heroines. My favorite TV show, by far, is Bones. It comes on FOX, and the heroine doesn't wear a red, white and blue leotard (well, there is one episode) but she and her team of scientists solve murders using emperical evidence. She is fiercely committed to the truth (think Golden Lasso) and always gets the culprit.
She is a forensic anthropologist, and uses the bones to identify victims and reconstruct crimes. The show is like a marraige between two of my favorite things; super hero ideals and science.
Well, this week, I get to play forensic anthropologist in my classroom with a University of Georgia Professor, Dr. Norm Thomson. He has brought his collection of ~35 skulls from extant and extinct organisms, including many of our hominid relatives (Lucy, Hobbit man, etc) to teach me and my students about using skeletal remains to draw inferences about an individual's sex, size, diet, and habitat.
It is such a treat for this teacher to be a student. Science teaching is a blast, but it also requires me to learn all the time. What we know in science is constantly changing, and when you teach full time, it is nearly impossible to stay up to date on current news in the field. When professors and experts loan themselves to science classrooms, it is not just the students that benefit, but also the teacher. Getting to be the student refreshes me, reminds me why I chose to study and teach in this field, and gives me ideas for revamping my curriculum in the coming years.
Blessing #20, May 17, 2010
I am thankful to be in a career that demands that I keep learning and growing. I am thankful there are professors and experts who are passionate about science education and willing to give of their time and expertise to teach students and teachers about recent developments in science. And I'm thankful that my imagination allows me to believe, on some level, that being a science teacher translates to living up to my childhood superhero fantasy.
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