“Well I think you basically fall into your career, the best ones you fall into, because you didn’t know it really existed. I had some really good teachers when I was growing up but I also had some really crappy teachers, so I wanted to correct all of those things, but yeah becoming a teacher had to do with not having other job possibilities.

But I knew that I liked biology and German and you can’t teach that easily in anything other than an exploratory way in elementary school, although I would say my favorite grade in school was 4th grade and I had a teacher that did a lot of biology.

Being a teacher makes me more reflective of what I do and everything that I do matters and the example I set so it’s a big responsibility in that regard. There are two things I think I’d want to be remembered for as a teacher. The first, that I loved science and secondly, that love of science I was able to transfer some of that to my students so that they’d become involved in science so that they did not settle for anything but that which is scientifically demonstrable. The best moments, well there are lots of them, the best moments are when students are reflective of their own experience and they acknowledge that they are responsible for their own learning.”