By: Christopher Allen
Robert Becker is an award winning chemistry teacher at Kirkwood High School in Missouri. He has a bachelors in Biology from Yale and a masters in teaching from Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. He is certified to teach in Chemistry, Physics and Biology at the high school level. He is the author of two books and has performed hundreds of chemistry demos across the country. This past week I attended one of his final demos at the Missouri Scholars Academy before his retirement. He was kind enough to stay afterwards so I could interview him.
Christopher R Allen
So what got you first interested in science?
Robert Becker
Oh my gosh. I enjoyed science from back when I was in middle school. Probably biology was my first passion just looking at pond water under a microscope and thinking “Oh my gosh, there's a whole world that we don't know about.” And then to take that one step further and wait, there's atoms and molecules we can see with microscopes and [that the] properties of all materials depending on those things. [And] at an early age lots of cool teachers that I had for sure.
Christopher R Allen
Favorite class when getting your degree?
Robert Becker
My favorite class in getting my degree in undergraduate?
Christopher R Allen
Yeah.
Robert Becker
Oh wow. You'll laugh at this. It was nothing to do with science. It was a 3D design class in
sculpture and just experimenting with what worked and what didn't. [It was] taught by Erwin Howard [and] it was just amazing. A few research courses also, like marine Biology.
Christopher R Allen
Favorite thing about science as a career?
Robert Becker
Well teaching as I said in my presentation, I feel like I hit the jackpot. I love kids. I love especially 10th graders that age group has just been a good fit for me. And to think that I get paid to teach a bunch of teens how to blow things up, you know, I can't ask for better than that. But along with that the teaching of responsibility, you know.
Christopher R Allen
Low points in your career or points where you doubted yourself?
Robert Becker
Wow. That's never been asked to me. I like it. Low point in my career or points where I doubted myself. In one of my early years teaching at Kirkwood, I didn't doubt myself, but I came down with a severe laryngitis and it was so difficult I had to get up in front of the class and just you know pantomime stuff. I'd have all these notes written out so it was fine for them. But it was just tough. For six weeks I was without my voice. I didn’t doubt myself, it was just Every time I have a student who has issues with honesty and we meet with the parents about cheating that is a low point because I just hate that part of the job, but it's an important part. It does not make me doubt myself, but it's not a pleasant part of the job.
Christopher R Allen
How has science changed your worldview?
Robert Becker
Science IS my worldview. Just about everything I look at it through a scientific and by that I mean skeptical perspective. You hear a statistic like, you know, 23 percent of students driving while texting were in accidents last year. Okay, but then why should they not also post next to that the percent of students who were not texting who were in accidents just so you have a fair comparison? It was an empty statistic. They showed one side of it and not the control. That's just the way I think whenever I hear something like that and it always surprises me that everyone doesn’t think that way. So science is my worldview. Whenever I learn about some new developments in science it gets me more excited. It's like there's no end.
Christopher R Allen
Favorite science experiment?
Robert Becker
So you saw a bunch of demos. There is a neat thing I do with dry ice where I put some in a pipette and pressurize it and it does melt and you actually see the liquid and the solid
and the gas. It's called the triple point. And then the plastic mold ruptures and splashes water all over the place. So that's a fun one.
Christopher R Allen
Words of advice for Scholars?
Robert Becker
Take all the science you can. Math and Science. And keep thinking about, as I said, teaching as a possible career. We're gonna need math and science teachers in quantity and quality in the next few years and if it's not coming from this group, then we're lost.
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