�

Wendy Roberts is a PhD student in science education at Georgia State University and also a high school

science teacher in the Atlanta metro area. She acted as my mentor in EDSC 7550 for the 2001 fall semester.

Wendy has had a very fruitful and successful academic and professional career. She graduated from Armstrong

Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia with a degree in biology. Upon graduation Wendy was undecided

what she wanted to do with her biology degree. In the middle of her first year out of college, she began teaching

school in Savannah and fell in love with it. As a result, Wendy went back to school and added on her teaching

certificate through doing an internship and taking education classes. In all, Wendy taught in Savannah from

January 1994 - June 1998. During part of this teaching career in Savannah, she obtained her Master's degree

in science education at Georgia Southern and Armstrong and graduated in 1996. Since she could not find suitable

doctoral programs, Wendy moved to the Atlanta area. While working on her PhD degree in science education at

Georgia State, she has taught science one year at Buford High School and three years at Sequoyah High School.

Wendy has taught many different types of courses but enjoys teaching biology and anatomy and physiology the

best. After finishing her PhD degree program, Wendy wants to move to a coastal region and teach science and

education classes at a small community college.

Wendy's career and aspirations have incredible similarities to mine. It was either a wonderful

coincidence or great planning that she was matched as my mentor. Like me, Wendy experienced much frustration

and doubt at to what to do with her biology degree. She began college as a premed major (like me) but realized she

wanted nothing to do with preparing for a career that would require working with sick people all day! Also similar to

me, Wendy worked as a research assistant in college to see if she wanted a career in research but that turned her

off as well. Wendy as well as myself wanted to do something with science, work with people, and be involved in

ongoing learning. According to Wendy, teaching is the best way to combine all of these passions.

My exchanges with Wendy on how to best educate teachers were interesting and absolutely inspiring

since I�share most if not all of her opinions. Wendy promotes a major overhaul in how we presently educate

most teachers. Teachers currently receive undergraduate education on theory that cannot be easily applied or

understood in the actual classroom during the first few years of teaching. Wendy believes in first educating

teachers on important content knowledge and then instructing them on different methods on how to teach this

content knowledge. She also believes that more time should be devoted to educating teachers on discipline and

classroom management techniques. The most intriguing of all is the importance Wendy placed on encouraging the

teacher to develop his/her soul and personality. She explains that if the teacher is not happy, he or she will never

be happy as a teacher and it will be reflected in her/his instruction. One must be at peace with oneself and with

one's soul in order to be an effective teacher.

Overall, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to meet and correspond with Wendy. She not only

gave me comfort in sharing similar experiences but she also gave me insights into different aspects of my

career and ideas in education that I may want to pursue.