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33 years just right for retiring biology teacherThe Capital Times
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- By Chris Murphy
- The Capital Times
Marilyn Hanson was about 20 years into her biology teaching career when she introduced the Lego project.
Her two sons had outgrown the building block toys, so she appropriated them for her Memorial High School classroom about a decade ago. Students soon found themselves building three-dimensional models of enzymes breaking down proteins.
"She understands so well that kids learn in different ways." |
''That's good learning going on there,'' she said in a recent interview, adding that the exercise also allows the teacher to see clearly whether a student understands the lesson.
But after 33 years of teaching, 31 in the Madison School District, this will be the last year that students at Memorial can take advantage of Hanson's expertise. She plans to retire and then start work in museum-based education in Tucson, Ariz., where she says she'll enjoy the warmth, too.
The Lego innovation was one of many that Hanson brought to the classroom, and it is an example of what Nancy Piraino says is Hanson's emphasis on teaching the same lesson several ways in a given class.
''She understands so well that kids learn in different ways,'' said Piraino, a first-year biology teacher who is training under Hanson.
She has also devoted much time outside of class to students.
Hanson has been Memorial's part-time talented and gifted coordinator since 1992, and she spent many years in the early part of her career working with motivated students on individual research projects.
Brian Hudelson was one such student. Hanson was his biology teacher in the late 1970s, and he is now a plant disease diagnostician for UW-Madison and UW-Extension.
''She got me started on where I am right now,'' he said.
Hanson worked with 66 students on research projects, and it was largely those efforts that earned her a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching in 1984. Only one teacher from each state wins the award.
Other honors followed, such as being one of 100 outstanding teacher finalists in 1992 in the nationwide Tandy Technology Scholar Award Program. The Lego exercise was a centerpiece of that application.
Three years later, Hanson won the Madison School District's Distinguished Service Award for high school teachers.
She estimates that she has taught about 4,000 students in her career, and her oldest one is 48 years old. Hanson, 56, said students have changed some in the past 30 years.
For one thing, fewer and fewer of them have much connection to the natural world. Hanson said some have never even been camping or visited an aquarium.
Students are also much more likely to work outside of school, Hanson said, forcing them to deal with time constraints that their peers a generation ago avoided.
''I just feel they have 40 years to work. Why start so early?'' she asked. ''I think that's growing up too fast.''
But it's not the students Hanson talks about when she's asked why she decided to retire. She gives an incredulous look and says: ''I've taught 33 years.''
The thought of a 70-degree day in January probably isn't discouraging either.
Posted April 6, 1999
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