The Original John Oliver

I was fortunate before I started teaching to talk to my high school chemistry teacher, John Oliver. He is a great science historian and excelled at making difficult material accessible to high school students. I was fortunate to have coffee with him this summer as I was seeking out how to teach high school chemistry. He was light on details (and he was correct) and heavy on general principles. “Be kind to yourself” was a refrain I heard from him more than once.

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Not the formerly moppy haired, HBO broadcasting, parrot-look-alike-wannabe, British comedian.

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We Heard You Were Burning Things (and Other Non Sequiturs)

I still get up early. And drink way too much coffee. And have difficulty finding time to use the restroom. And lunch is still eaten on the fly, if at all.

I still get up early. And drink way too much coffee. And have difficulty finding time to use the restroom. And lunch is still eaten on the fly, if at all.

There’s a lot overlap between medicine and teaching.

You could also say that I’m doing well.

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(In)Frequently Asked Questions

“I don’t really like math for its own sake. What I love is that it lets you take some things that you know, and just by moving symbols around on a piece of paper, you find out something that you didn’t know that’s very surprising.” -Randall Munroe (“Comics that Ask ‘What If’” – Ted Talk)

“If you love science for science’s sake, teach college. If you really like science, but you really love to work with students, teach high school.” -Dr. Karen LaFever (in a conversation with me as I was picking my path to teach high school chemistry)

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Sabbatical, Step 4: Finding Career #2

“The vicissitudes of life usually teach an intelligent person what he can handle. It does help to have someone wise in the ways of candles to steady you as you grope toward the light.”

-Bill Bowerman

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