An Interview with Linda Ford, 2003 Award Winner - ACS Publications

Chemical Education Today

Conant Award Interview

An Interview with Linda Ford, 2003 Award Winner by JCE Editorial Staff

Linda Ford will receive the 2003 James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching at the 225th American Chemical Society National Meeting in New Orleans, LA, in March 2003. She spoke with Journal staff recently about the award and the successful teaching career on which it is based. Her responses are below. Receiving the Award The Conant Award is the highest award that a high school chemistry teacher can receive. What does winning the award mean to you, both personally and professionally? Frankly, the news of this award was quite overwhelming. I have met several of the previous recipients at professional gatherings and know that they swing some pretty big bats in chemical education. I feel more comfortable receiving this award as a representative of the legion of fine chemistry teachers. I have taught in the classroom next door to them, participated in the workshops that they have led, and shared many informal conversations with them. They have helped me to excel in my teaching. The ACS validates all of our efforts with this award. I am just the lucky lady to walk away with it this year! Professionally, I hope that the award gives me opportunities, such as this interview, to speak out and be heard on crucial educational issues.

Who prepared your nomination? Was it based on any particular achievement? Two long-standing members of the Cincinnati Section, Ted Logan and Hank Greeb, encouraged and prepared my nomination. Both of these gentlemen have dedicated tremendous time and energy to the work of the American Chemical Society. Ted celebrates his 50th year in the ACS this year. Our mutual respect has grown as we have worked to strengthen the ties between the section and the teaching community. I have been active in the Cincinnati chemical educators’ discussion group for several years and its chair for four years. Whenever I have brought a request to the section board on behalf of the group, they have enthusiastically responded, “You go, girl!” I like to think that my enthusiastic and responsible work with this group caught the eye of both Hank and Ted. How did your students react to your winning this award? What was the reaction of your colleagues and administration? Frank Cardulla told me that the awards ceremony is spectacular and suggested that I savor the experience. It will be hard to beat the number of hugs, congratulatory cards and phone calls, rounds of applause, and expressed bravos that I have received. When the award was announced at a full faculty meeting (pre-K through 12), the teachers leaped

photo by Chelsea McCracken

About Linda Ford The 2003 Conant Award winner is Linda Kay Ford of Seven Hills School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her responses in a recent JCE interview appear above and on the following pages. Linda Ford was born in Cincinnati, which remained her home until she went away to college at Ohio Wesleyan University. There she was an ACS-certified chemistry major and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in June 1970. She was very active on the OWU campus and considers her finest accomplishment the establishment and supervision of a tutoring program between the college’s students and the children in the public schools of Delaware, Ohio. By her senior year the program had grown to involve more than 200 college students in direct tutoring experiences. After graduation she went to the University of Chicago to work on a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. After her first year of coursework, she rejected the life of the research chemist for the excitement of the classroom. She took most of her education courses as independent studies and received her Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in chemistry in January 1972. During student-teaching the University of Chicago placement office told her of a job opening on

Chicago’s north side. With permission from the university’s education department to stop her student-teaching after only six weeks, she accepted her first teaching job in November 1971. In this rather unorthodox way Ford stepped into her own classroom—a place that remains magical and exciting for her today.

Linda Ford and Ben Simpson with an Octet Jar full of rewards.

When Ford married in 1973, her husband’s job transfer brought her back to Cincinnati. Since 1973 she has had several different teaching experiences in the Cincinnati area that include an inner-city school of 900 students, a suburban school of 2000 students, evening school in a technical college, and at present an independent school of 300 students. While she greatly prefers high school teaching, she taught evening school at a nearby technical college while raising three small children. She is at present in her 24th year of high school teaching.

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photo by Kathy Deubell

Linda Ford watches as Ruthann Peace and Anna Wreck operate a GC.

to a standing ovation as my heart leaped in my chest. When the award was announced at a full school assembly, the students would not stop applauding as I tried to sheepishly hide behind a colleague. Needless to say, this is a pretty special year in my classroom. I have never experienced such attention in my life. The beauty of it is that I have been reconnected to former students, colleagues, professors, neighbors, and friends who have heard the news. Teachers are all about people and human connections; these few months have enriched me. Professional Background What events influenced your choice of a career in chemistry teaching? I came to teaching in a roundabout way. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) with a chemistry major, I headed to the University of Chicago (U of C) to work for my Ph.D. I fully planned on being a research chemist. At OWU, I had balanced my rigorous coursework and laboratory hours with several community service projects. At U of C, my days were strictly with science, and I became disenchanted with my choice. I was slumped on a campus bench and feeling pretty glum when a passerby asked me why I looked so sad. It turned out that he was a physics student working for his MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching). He walked me over to the education office and 18 months later I had an MAT in chemistry and was stepping into my first classroom. I wish I could remember the guy’s name; I owe him a big thank-you. The classroom gives me the necessary balance between my love of science and my need for strong social interaction that puts joy into my day. Have you had a particularly influential teacher or mentor? Can you share this experience with readers and tell us about the characteristics that made him or her have such impact? Two people come quickly to mind. The first is Mrs. Peters, my seventh-grade reading teacher. She recognized something special in me and let me know it. She encour370

aged me to shine academically. That simple suggestion motivated me to turn on my learning engine, and it has been going ever since. She invited me to be a classroom aid for an elementary school summer reading program. I still remember the satisfaction and pleasure of working with those children. I think Mrs. Peters laid the groundwork for my teaching. Robert McQuigg was my advisor and professor at OWU. He showed such a special interest in my learning and has been a dear friend ever since. Every college student deserves such a mentor who watches over her academic development and opens up the possibilities of successful living. McQuigg invited me back to campus 15 years after my graduation to give a departmental seminar. These invitations are generally extended to the researchers, doctors, and engineers among the alumni. My teaching colleagues were amazed that a high school teacher would receive such an invitation. He validated my profession with that invitation. My wish is that some of my students think of me in the same way that I think of these two remarkable teachers. Some people view teaching as an easy job, one without personal sacrifice and with privileges such as free summers and reusable lesson plans. As an awardwinning teacher surely you can counter that view. Are there especially effective ways that you go above and beyond the minimum? I think effective teachers truly love and understand their subject and are eager to generate that same love and understanding in their students. In my classroom, each lesson is an invitation to explore the physical world, look for patterns of behavior, relate similar events, and fit new concepts into a framework of knowledge. This invitation had better be upbeat and exciting because it competes with a long list of other choices in the minds of teenagers—sports, the opposite sex, social pressures, parental expectations, among others. I want the students to leave all of that stuff outside my door and give me 40 minutes dedicated to science. Together we can build a scientific community that poses questions, conducts experiments, discusses results, and builds confidence in challenging tough material. There has to be an element of fun mixed with the unexpected and the imaginative. Add to that the responsibility of incorporating the use of new technologies into the curriculum. None of it happens by accident; it requires many hours of preparation. Since I teach three different levels of chemistry, I run approximately 70 different experiments during the year. I do demonstrations daily and some of them require very special reagents, lighting, music, and costumes. Very little of this preparation happens during the school day. Those hours are filled with classes, tutoring, make-up work, collaborations with colleagues, informal bull sessions with kids, and committee obligations. I think most effective teachers are identified by their ability to swallow lunch in less than five minutes and to maintain bladder control for six hours. Evenings are for writing classroom materials and grading student work. I look at each student’s laboratory notebook once a week to assess the progress of the work. The summer is for

Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 4 April 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu


developing new activities, learning new technology, and attending professional gatherings. I believe the veteran teacher has an obligation to share the accumulated classroom successes with her colleagues. I offer a presentation at each professional meeting that I attend. When I fall into bed at night, I am thankful for the high quality day that I have enjoyed. Do you have a favorite quotation, perhaps one that has guided or sustained you professionally? In honor of my wonderful high school Latin teacher, Mrs. Pack, I have posted in my classroom this quote: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. (Happy is (s)he who is able to know the cause of things.)

To convince students that science is a process, I have posted this quote from Freeman Dyson: Science is an objective struggle between the precision of tools and the ambiguities of nature.

To verify my southern Ohio roots, I have posted this silliness: You can’t run with the big dogs if you never get off the porch.

Teaching Career and Philosophy All of us have experienced changes in teaching and learning chemistry during our teaching careers. Can you tell us about those that have affected you and describe your reaction(s) to them? I have two areas of great change. I have lived the technology revolution. When I started teaching chemistry in 1972, all calculations were done on a slide rule. I began using calculators that did only simple arithmetic in 1975. In 1987, I built my own blocktronic colorimeter and a pressure transducer to use with my Apple IIe computer. Thirty years later, my students use graphing calculators. I have a wide selection of sensors and probes that we can interface with those calculators or with laptop computers. I have a software package that allows me to show 3-D imaging of molecules. We can contrast graphs done by hand with those done on our computers. We research elements and create PowerPoint presentations. We videotape lab safety rules and then edit them into a finished project with iMovie. I am both excited and challenged by these technological advances. I have spent countless hours in workshops and in front of monitors to sort out how to use all of these wonderful advances and have then developed strategies for using them with students. Instructional time must be devoted to creating a comfort zone for students. Since the students have a wide range of abilities with their calculators and their computers, it is a perfect place for cooperative learning groups. The second great change is the student makeup of the classroom. In the 70s, only 25–30% of the student body elected a chemistry class. My classes were filled with eager minds ready to challenge all of the lovely details of chemistry including quantum numbers, complex equilibrium problems, and thermodynamics. What fun to lay a strong chemical

foundation for these young people who were destined to be scientists, doctors, nurses, and engineers! During the last 15 years, chemistry has been a graduation requirement in my schools. Now a great number of my students are less motivated or downright dreading science class. I have had to redesign whole curriculums to create worthwhile scientific experiences for these students. I now teach three levels of chemistry during the day. Like a chameleon, I must change my material, techniques, and activities from bell to bell to convince my students that there is something important to be learned in chemistry class. Real world connections make the students feel purposeful in their learning. Students are more committed to learning stoichiometry after testing the explosiveness of varying ratios of H2 and O2 and examining a working fuel cell. “Like dissolves like” is more meaningful as students watch me clean up an oil spill with the nonpolar cuticle of human hair. Separation techniques take on more importance when students distill vodka (salted by me before using) and solve a forensic science question with the gas chromatograph. Acid precipitation is regarded more seriously after students design and perform an experiment to determine the rate of reaction between marble chips and an acid. Chemistry is everywhere but much of it cannot be seen. What are some things you do to make chemistry come alive for your students? Six elements make chemistry come alive in my classroom: weekly experiments, daily demonstrations, Internet explorations, knowledgeable speakers, projects, and an arsenal of hokum. My students complete 34 to 36 experiments, many of their own design, during the year. They keep their own laboratory notebook record of their work and use every piece of equipment available at my school. Students become empowered to do science and their confidence soars. I am fortunate that my school schedules an 80-minute lab period for each of my classes. Students can do thoughtful work with that chunk of time. Most students are very visual learners. A wide assortment of demonstrations helps them to lock onto the chemical concepts. Some are quick and easy, and others are quite elaborate. I try to connect with their emotions by doing demonstrations with music, costumes, props, and poetry. I pull out my Kermit the Frog and do flame tests to Rainbow Connection to celebrate Black History Month. The Marvels sing Blue Moon as I activate a chemiluminescent ammonia fountain. I recite Jack Prelutsky’s Will o’ the Wisp while preparing phosphine gas. I become the “Great Chemtini” on Halloween and perform chemical magic to mystify and entertain. I use some great Web sites as homework assignments to spice up class discussion. We might read about flames in space during our discussion of combustion reactions or explore the possibility of chocolate addiction when discussing organic functional groups. I invite former students and professional acquaintances into my classroom. Students are fascinated by the personal stories of an FBI agent, a forensic chemist, a flavor chemist who harvested new botanicals in the central African rain forest, a marine biologist, and an elec-


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Conant Award Interview trical engineer who wintered over in Antarctica twice to maintain the radio telescope. I have taken students to speakers in the community, including a NASA astronaut and Nobel Prize-winning Richard Smalley. I intersperse projects in my curriculum. Students express their creativity by tie-dyeing t-shirts, socks, and boxers or by folding lotus blossoms and origami fish from their handmade marbleized paper. They explore engineering design by building torpedoes powered by the baking soda–vinegar reaction. The torpedo run is a 3-meter length of aluminum gutter. As for the hokum…I sing an ode to water, and I stamp excellent lab notebook entries with the Buddhist god of fire. To reward quality work, I hand out pencils inscribed with “I did a good job in chemistry”. I award mole certificates and tattoos when students command the concept. Kids rush to the octet jar for a jellybean reward after completing an octet of Lewis dot structures. On February 28 we celebrate Linus Pauling’s birthday with decorations, cake, and vitamin C tablets. He is my personal hero. I share his life’s work with my students and encourage them to find their own heroes in life.

I have been so lucky in my career. I have had some amazing professional development opportunities. The biennial ChemEd conferences are a wonderful source of new ideas and inspiration. The participants really help me to recharge my batteries! I have spent two weeks at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, enjoyed a three-week visit to Japan as part of the Fulbright Memorial Fund, and interned for eight weeks at Quantum Chemical Company. I have all of my J. Chem. Educ. issues dating from 1971 and refer to them constantly. I also subscribe to ChemMatters and Chem13 News. I reap tremendous amounts of information from NASA Web sites. My local educators’ discussion group is constantly providing resources, speakers, workshops, and open discussions.

All of us seek sources of new and innovative ways to teach—things that will be helpful to our students as well as providing stimulation for ourselves. Inspiration may come from journal articles or summer workshops or a local teacher group. What have you found particularly helpful? Are there things that have not been available but which you hoped would be?

Great teachers inventively promote profound learning in kids. They are role models of learning as they pose questions, solve problems, engage in discussion, and struggle with difficult concepts. They dignify the learning process by living it every day. They are never satisfied with what they do or know but continually reassess their classroom experience in order to stay on a steep upward growth curve. They know a great deal about curriculum development, discipline, ability grouping, parent involvement, and standardized testing. They have learned to establish a balance between creating a nurturing and caring classroom and producing the results demanded by superintendents, boards of education, and state legislatures. They educate other people’s children as if they were their own. They consider their work important but teach with a light heart.

About the Conant Award James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching This award, sponsored by Albemarle Corporation, is intended to recognize, encourage, and stimulate outstanding teachers of high school chemistry in the United States and its territories at both the regional and national levels. Any individual, except a current student of the nominee or a member of the Award Committee, may submit one nomination for a regional award in any given year. Local Sections of the ACS may also submit a nomination for an award in their region. The regional award consists of $1000, a certificate, and travel expenses to the regional meeting at which the award is presented. Nominators of each recipient of an ACS Regional Award in High School Chemistry Teaching for the three years preceding the award year will be invited to submit a nomination for the National Award, which consists of $5000, a certificate, and travel expenses to the national ACS meeting at which the award is presented.

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In your personal view, what qualities describe a great teacher? Is it a part of your own teaching philosophy to achieve these qualities? Are there any characteristics or techniques that have served you well in your teaching?

Are you aware of any personal characteristics that set you apart from other teachers and serve you well in your profession? An English teacher once told me that he overheard students in the library discussing their favorite chemistry demonstrations. He said that my course had created its own spoken lore. I love comments from parents that “your course has become our dinner table conversation”. Student letters that tell me “You opened new horizons in the way we learned things. I will never forget you, specially when I turn on a lighter to make a BBQ” and “you showed me how I’m supposed to love what I do when I grow up” are my evidence for making a difference. I try to empower students to turn on their internal lights. Here are two success stories—one intentional and the other unintentional. I was teaching a course to a small group of very low-achieving students in a very high-achieving student body. One student was especially isolated socially, academically, and economically. She lived on a small farm



Great teachers … are role models of learning as they pose questions, solve problems, engage in discussion, and struggle with difficult concepts. They dignify the learning process by living it every day. surrounded by upscale housing projects and became keenly interested in turning biomass into methane. I pointed her toward some research on biomass digesting. We searched together for the materials to build a digester, rigged it up in the corner of my room. During the process we had great fun. At first we had a stinky mess but ultimately we had a standing methane flame. I encouraged her to enter her project in the regional science fair; she did and took third place. She explained her project to her classmates and then at an evening meeting of the board of education. I witnessed this student’s transformation into a confident and proud learner. Sometimes very cool things happen when you least expect them. I had a boy in class who was bright but not very popular. Because of a profound hearing loss, he had to wear hearing aids in both ears and spoke with an unusual cadence. He did not like to speak in front of his classmates but was filled with questions. After class one day he was really grilling me on the man-made elements. Out of exasperation, I jokingly suggested that he should ask the expert by dialing up Glenn Seaborg. The next day he excitedly told me that he had actually placed the call and had spoken to Seaborg. I asked him to share this amazing experience with his classmates. They showered him with positive attention and respect that continued the rest of the year. What advice would you give to prospective teachers or those just starting out in a career of chemistry teaching? What would you advise more experienced teachers, perhaps something that has helped you guard against the complacency that can come from many years in the same job? My advice for both the new teacher and the veteran boils down to one word: collegiality. It is at the core of professional development and sustained excitement for the work of the classroom. In preschool, children engage in parallel play: one three-year-old is so engrossed in digging a hole in the sand that he is completely oblivious to another child in the sandbox. Teachers do a very similar thing when they are isolated in their classrooms. Veteran teachers should uncork their craft knowledge so that new teachers can avoid reinventing the wheels of learning and committing mistakes that veteran teachers know better than to commit. In return, new teachers can share their unabashed enthusiasm, knowledge of new teaching theories, and solid technology know-how. Every teacher has the responsibility to seek and build collegiality in order to sustain a joyful career. Hopefully, it can be found within your schoolhouse walls. But if your school has a negative environment, establish a support group in your community.

Have you had success in writing up your work and publishing it in an academic journal? Is so, describe how you got started and tell us about any assistance you may have had along that sometimes rocky path to final publication. I have had articles published in this Journal (1), The Science Teacher (2), and Chem13 News (3). In each case, I was sharing a classroom activity. I did the writing during the summer and found these educational journals are very supportive. It is another way to serve the profession. Relationship with Students Why do you think it is important for students to take chemistry? What do you hope that they will gain from being in your class? My personal goals for each class are steadfast: (1) captivate the students’ imaginations to wonder about their physical world; (2) build a firm foundation of chemical concepts to support further study; and (3) encourage each student to strengthen his or her skills in writing, critical thinking, analytical thought, and handling technology. Science requires that lovely balance between creative thought and attention to small detail. It requires a high level of patience and perseverance as well as thoughtful reflection. By demanding that students at all levels take precise measurements, search for patterns in larger data sets, venture plausible explanations within small groups and to the class as a whole, and troubleshoot their own technology difficulties, I am helping them build skills for lifelong success. I do not buy into the “science is fun” mentality that reduces the subject to fun and games, but I do want my students to leave my course with very positive memories to sustain a continual interest in the role of science in their lives. Do you have a particularly successful method of encouraging students to strive academically? Three methods come to mind. I try to build on the students’ strengths and not attack their weaknesses. I encourage them to take credit for what they have accomplished and their willingness to do it. I do not give false praise but consciously praise a lot. I calculate a balanced grade so that tests and quizzes become only 50% of their final grade. The other 50% is based on their lab work, projects, and organization of their chemical binder. If a test question “stumps the stars”, I do not incorporate it into the final score. I encourage students to be bold learners by sharing their learning with one another in groups of various sizes. For example, they might finish a lab experience and then have to discuss


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Colorimetry and computers in the lab with P.G. Sittenfeld and Danny Mon.

and summarize their results with another lab team. They will write their summary with dry-erase marker on a piece of white board. Then they present their findings to the entire class. I validate the student who proposes a less conventional explanation with chemical history anecdotes that illustrate courageous new interpretations. Finally, I intentionally include “lighten-up” moments in the course to take us back from a stressful edge or reward us for a string of hardworking days. Notice that I say “us” because I believe the students and I are in the learning process together. Advising students about career choices will necessarily vary with each individual, but is there an underlying theme that you could share with our readers? I think everyone needs to define what she is good at and embrace it. Teachers can help kids in the beginning of this self-assessing process by identifying for them the talents they have shared in the classroom. I also talk with them about consciously finding a passion and making sure that it is incorporated significantly in their adult days. I caution them to not fear change. I am a decent example of that. After 18 years at an outstanding public school in Cincinnati, I moved to a small independent school. I know that many colleagues thought I either suffered a great mid-life crisis or was just downright loony. But I needed to challenge myself for several important reasons that included greater control over a chemistry program and a higher degree of collegiality. I am deliciously happy in my new school and delighted to enjoy the Conant Award while a part of the marvelous Seven Hills faculty. Summing Up Your voice may get a fuller hearing now that you are an award-winning teacher. Is there anything you would like to suggest to those who shape education in this country that would enable teachers to do a better job in the classroom? That would attract and keep the best teachers in the classroom?

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Our society does not place a high enough level of importance on the teaching profession. There is no more noble a profession. It takes a lot of courage and stamina to do the work well. Extremely competent people leave the profession because they are treated as subordinates in a sea of folks who pretend to know our jobs better than we do. That includes parents, administrators, consultants, and government officials who have spent very little time in a classroom. I challenge these groups to invite veteran teachers to sit at the decision-making table and be leaders. Give qualified teachers an oar on the big boat that we call educational reform. I especially challenge administrators to rethink their approaches to professional development. Are they allowing a tremendous resource to walk out of their buildings when a veteran teacher with vast experience retires? Are they breaking down the isolation of teachers by sending groups of teachers to the same conference and then helping them to build cooperative strategies to implement new approaches? Have they ever thought to attend a conference with their teachers to gain more insight into the talents of their faculty? Do they look at the day-to-day operation of the school and initiate plans for collaborative work to save teacher time and maximize quality of instruction? I firmly believe that teachers have many important answers to questions they are never asked. Ask them the questions and listen carefully to the answers. All professional people appreciate being heard. Teacher appreciation has to be more than two platters of cheese and crackers laid down on a table in the faculty lounge at the end of the year. Literature Cited 1. Ford, Linda Kay. Pre-vacation Experiment: The Effect of Temperature and Torsion on the Structure of a Saccharide. J. Chem. Educ. 1977, 54, 550. 2. a. Ford, Linda Kay. The Potato Experiment. Sci. Tchr. 1987, 54, 44–45; b. Physics Fortunes. 1991, 58, 48; c. The Octet Jar. 1997, 64, 53. 3. Ford, Linda Kay. The Egg Experiment. Chem 13 News No. 263, January 1998, 6.



Linda Ford is in the lab with Alyssa Trindle and Andy Barr.

An Interview with Linda Ford, 2003 Award Winner - ACS Publications

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