Interview with a Science Teacher

I had an opportunity to catch up with a friend I have not seen in years, a friend who I’ve know since my last foray into teaching, in what seems like a world away. We got to drive cross country together and climb a lot, and our kids are about the same age. He moved to Austin some years ago and we do not see each other as much as we would like. He has been a biology for nearly 20 years now and teaches AP Biology and Medical Biology in Austin. We caught up during overlapping planning periods on Zoom. I asked him what academic language meant to him. He took a moment and responded “I don’t know, hmm…, I am assuming it has to do with the language one uses in school and in learning”. I love how close to one of the better text book answers I have come across in regards to academic language. I followed up with questions about how he used literacy and language in the classroom, he talked about challenging students with journal articles and lots of inquiry based research. I asked him what he read more, scientific articles or teaching articles and without batting an eye expressed his love of reading and keeping on top of research in Biology. What I liked most about this teacher’s response is that in terms of science, his big goal around language was to build his students’ confidence so that they would not be intimidated by dense scientific text. Not only did he challenge his students with journal articles, he gives them strategies on how to read them and how to summarize them, and most importantly on how to use them effectively. Much of this is done in more informal ways throughout the course of the year, but research is central to the way he teaches.