APPLETON, Wis. – Kara Pezzi didn’t want to be a teacher.
With a degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsinat Superior and plans to pursue a Ph.D in chemistry down at UW-Madison, Pezzi couldn’tinitially see teaching as the best way to pursue her passion for science. “Iwanted to be a chemist,” she recalled during an interview this week in a high schoolclassroom here.
Serving as a graduate teaching assistant, however, sherealized that a doctorate in chemistry “was not the path my life would take.”
High school chemistry teacher Kara Pezzi will be recognized as Wisconsin's top science teacher under the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
Pezzi quickly found that she took to teaching undergraduatechemistry like a fish to water. “I found my passion,” she remembered. It was “achance to share my love of chemistry, a chance to open the eyes of youngpeople, to show them the world from a different perspective.”
Next week (June 27), Pezzi will be among about 100 math andscience teachers traveling to Washington to be recognized for their efforts througha National Science Foundation program called the Presidential Awards forExcellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. The teachers’ packed scheduleincludes meetings with NSF officials and members of Congress, a White Housetour and perhaps a meeting with President Obama.
Despite the national recognition, it’s not been a gooddecade for teachers, especially high school teachers. According to someestimates, the percentage of U.S. spending on education has declined by 2percent to 5 percent of total GDP over the last decade. Despite all the talkabout STEM education (science, engineering, technology and mathematics), thereality at the high school level is overcrowded classrooms, distracted studentsuninterested in or fearful of demanding science classes and, of course, harriedteachers.
Pezzi, who is teaching an interdisciplinary summer schoolclass for high school instructors, normally teaches five sections of chemistryat Appleton East High School (the school has gone from three to two chemistryteachers during her 14 years there). Pezzi has about 30 students per class in aroom equipped with 28 lab stations. For many, chemistry will be the toughestclass they take in high school. “They look at science as being really, reallyhard,” she said.
Indeed, the high school has only 60 students taking physics,an elective course that used to be required in the Appleton school district.
Pezzi just shrugs. “It’s not something that’s easy to fix,”the Milwaukee native said.
Along with reducing class sizes, another reform would bedropping standardized testing. Having taught high school chemistry for 20years, Pezzi is convinced that standardized tests don’t work. “Let us teach,”she pleaded.
Despite the long days, students complaining about poor gradesand the pervasive fear of failure on the part of many parents, Pezzi said anoccasional call from a former student makes it all worth it. She recently heardfrom one who is earning a Ph.D in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University inBaltimore. You can sense her pride.
That future chemist and the others whose lives were changed foreverby a thoroughly committed chemistry teacher in this small Upper Midwestern cityare the essence of education.
For that, we all owe a debt of gratitude to our teachers.
And we’re glad Kara Pezzi changed her mind and became a highschool chemistry teacher.