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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-12
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS2KCFo5FOM
I'm a science teacher and I love my job I got into this thirteen years ago for the chance to inspire the next generation to become scientists but sadly at the beginning of my career very few of the high school students I taught who went to college shows anything to do with science I quite frankly even from that small number fewer of them persisted long enough to
earn those degrees and this perplex me this saddened me even though it seemed to match what was happening elsewhere let me show you this craft if this pie chart represents all of the high school students in America then only this portion represents the high school students who were deemed proficient in size and math by the time they graduate and the question then becomes how many of
them were even existed in a career in science and math well it goes down to this proportion by the time I school students graduate only seventeen percent of them are both proficient at interested in a career in science so it's no wonder that we see outcomes like this which comes from the national center for education statistics it says that forty eight percent all the college students
who chose a spam major between two thousand three and two thousand nine just a few years later had I the switch to something non stem or he dropped out completely this bothered me and honestly it haunted me as a teacher until I stumbled on what I think is a part of the answer one day in my classroom imagine me for a moment standing in the front
of my AP physics class a team of the smartest students at my school and at the end of the lesson one day I acts them Hey guys what careers you thinking about when school is over so for this class so not surprisingly more than half of them said some kind of engineering and I don't remember what led me to act the next question but I was
indelibly changed by the outcome I acts them sure you guys want to be engineers how many of you have ever met an engineer zero hands in fact let's do this test for those of you that are here how many of you actually know an engineer just like I thought less than half of the and then even for those of you who know an engineer ask yourself
this question do you know what they actually do I'll admit one of my closest friends has been an engineer for almost fifteen years and even as an adult even as a science teacher I had no clue what he didn't elect a year ago sadly this is the reality for many of the students who said in our classrooms and we see the same thing for science students
tell me they want to be scientists because of some romanticized the idea of what scientists do but they have no clue if we want to see education improve then we have to fix this that day I realized this is a glaring weakness in the way we do education and I'm just I was just as guilty as everybody else I told my students if you study hard
enough and if you learn the science if you learn this math you can become an engineer but that's a world you can't see until you get there if you study hard enough if you pay attention you can become a scientist but don't worry about what scientists do you'll see that when you get there we try to convince our students to prepare themselves for careers with very
little information about what they're what they're preparing themselves for if there's any possibility that this is the barrier that separates our students from their careers we cannot sit idly by and allow this to happen we need to be able to build a bridge for our students from the classrooms they sedan to the careers they want witchy now I think art and music teachers are doing a
better job of this for instance this picture from one of my best friends season art teacher in Maryland where she's had her students display their artwork in the local gallery or we often read about the music teacher who gets his best students connected and playing along with the local symphony and those ways those students get a real taste for what it's like to function in those
professions what does this look like a court teachers like science and math in English I think the answer lies in harnessing the power of meaningful school university in industry partnerships we need more of these stake holders working together to bridge that gap there are at least three ways that partnerships like these can help universities in industries can provide advice they can give direct guidance or curriculum
decisions helping us as teachers refine our focus and ensuring that we're addressing the work skills in the content to prepare students for sensible stem careers a good example of this is the widening focused on polling in America which came directly from industry recommendations industry said we need more students who can code schools heard this and of respondent the second way its resources almost always universities in
industries have the resources that it takes to make learning difficult concepts more relevant for students how let you in on a secret middle school students in high school students don't really care about sales but they're more apt to learn about cells when they get a window into what cancer research looks like even my students aren't that interested in physics but the excitement increases when I explain
to them the football collisions can generate enough force to be truly dangerous and yet mechanical engineers are working now to design better helmets that a more protective but the best part of this is that universities in industries have the ability to offer exposure they can expose our students to these careers and very meaningful ways and that's my story I was unsatisfied with this in my classroom
and I search for ways how can I tear down this veil from my students until I landed in the gift program a Georgia tech the gift program partners teachers with university researchers and industry professionals I was connected with Dr Kell Lieberman a biochemist and I work in her lab where we where we use protein crystallography a study the molecular details of important proteins involved in Alzheimer's
and walk home I've learned a ton about proteins like my was still in and signal peptide peptidase or about experiments like high performance liquid chromatography but the true magic happens when I return to my classroom every time I come back to my classroom from my own experience I am now equipped with those connections that can make learning meaningful for my students I can point to experiments
in the textbook and say Hey look guys I did this and I know why scientists do it and this is why they do it and in enough time my passion becomes my students passions even better in the more recent years I get to bring teams of my students with me for the summer they spend five weeks in the lab actually involved in the process designing the
experiments using sophisticated million dollar equipment collecting the results discussing the conclusions this picture is of Jose Jose was one of the first units that came along with me and I'm proud to tell you now that Jose is a student at Emory University studying forensic anthropology I'm supremely confident that his experience that summer solidified what he thought about a career in science that help to bolster his
confidence to pursue that career I've kept us going out for six years and ever since I've started it I've been able to see the number of my students who choose stem careers increased drastically just like I explained in the very beginning almost none of them shows anything to do with stem and out of all my classes I teach about sixty seniors a year I've seen the
number of them increased every year until last year almost a third of my students have chosen stem was damaged in fact some of them have already earned those degrees in of moved on to those careers now there are other ways to get involved at places like the think academy lagrange Georgia all like our very own career academy in Douglasville industry partners band together to find innovative
classrooms with industry relevant equipment and beyond that experienced professionals lend their expertise to teach you need glasses decide to increase workforce skills and prepare students for advanced careers like manufacturing these programs have been shown to have been overwhelmingly positive effect on helping students know what careers they're getting into lesson I know I'm not the only one I am not the only teacher in turning in a
lab I'm not the only one doing something unique to connect my students to their careers and career academies aren't the only way that industries to get involved but what I hope is by telling these stories they might motivate others who are not yet involved to become engaged make no mistake this is a call to action I'm sending out a charge for every university researcher every industry
professional out there to find just one classroom that you can partner with in a meaningful way visit their school on more than just career day and then open the door so that they can come and visit you in your place of work to actually see what you do when that happens we will see our students stepped out one of much firmer foundation one sure footing as
they make career decisions we will see them much more enthusiastic about their learning and we can see them have the confidence to pursue these careers and as I close I want to share with you that I think this model can impact every subject not to stem what would it look like if the local newspaper reached out to the eighth grade English teacher and said we're going
to reserve a weekly column for nonfiction articles from your students how many of those students will get the experience of what it feels like to be a journalist to organize my thoughts to get my point across to sink week to edit my article appropriately even to get my article in on time and then how many of those same students will grow up thinking while I want
