The Kenan Fellow/Mentor partnership is the foundation of our program and what we do. What does this parternship mean to you?

Obviously this program does not work without a mentor.  The mentor is here to give the teachers the valuable science experience that we all signed up for.  I was really worried coming into the program that my mentor would not be very patient with my lack of lab experience, or would talk over my head with science concepts and terms that I am unfamiliar with.  This was not at all the case.  Dan worked extra hard along the way to make sure that he wasn’t talking over our heads or dumbing down his work.  He explained and demonstrated lab procedures over and over to us until we felt comfortable doing them ourselves.  But I think the part about working with Dan that made the experience the best is when he said that he didn’t want to be called a mentor, that didn’t quite feel right.  He said he felt more like the science collaborator, and we were the education collaborators.  That “mentor” made it sound like he was above us when really he viewed us all on the same level, just with different expertise.

Another level to the relationship is that he was willing to come to our schools and meet with our students.  My students were so excited to meet “a real scientist”  that they are still talking about it.  They have been asking questions about the mites, and when will Dan have our results and be back to see us.  I think this is really the coolest part.  Science doesn’t seem so far away.  The kids are very excited about knowing a scientists and working with one and being a part of the experiment.  Science has been made real for them, and they love it.  Even the students that told me they don’t like science, or they are creeped out by the face mites.  They all seem much more engaged and willing to learn now that they share a piece of this big puzzle.