USC Science Interns Offer Peer Rapport, Role Models

At John H. Glenn High School in Norwalk, chemistry teacher Rita Starnes asks Ben Balough--an intern assisting her in the classroom--not only for his opinion on specific questions but to review the entire curriculum of her junior-senior class.

At John Marshall High in Los Angeles, chemistry teacher Rosa Nagaishi doubles her teaching time with the help of intern Tracy Lee.

Teachers and interns in both cases are participating in a program started by USC in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified and other Southland public school districts to achieve three goals:

--To aid classroom science teachers--often overburdened as their numbers fall to attractive offers from industry and business--with help in presenting demonstrations, working with small groups of students, preparing experiments and teaching.

--To provide jobs--at $6.50 an hour--for knowledgeable university science students.

--To interest science majors in potential teaching careers, especially by pairing them with high school teachers who are excellent role models.

So far it all seems to be working out fine, according to just about everybody involved.

Sherryl Lucarelli, director of academic relations for USC’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, works on programs to build friendships with high schools, a notion dear to the heart of USC Vice President and Dean Irwin C. Lieb, who initiated the USC Teaching Intern Assistant Program.

“We want USC’s teachers and the teachers in the high schools to develop friendships and good relations,” Lucarelli said. “Teachers need to know new content in their subject areas, and we need to know what’s going on in the high schools.”

With that goal in mind, USC developed a “Mutual Learning Program” that brings teachers from public schools to the university campus for a day, primarily to let them discover progress in research but also as a way to deal with burnout by sharing experiences.

From that experience with visiting teachers grew the notion to pay USC science students to assist high school teachers in the classroom. The program also provides films and educational materials, including chemicals and other items for experiments, to the high school classes.

“A lot of lab demonstrations are impossible because a teacher has too many students,” Lucarelli said. “We saw a bigger problem than we could patch up with a visit here and there. We also saw science majors who would be able to work in the classrooms, and we saw a way to encourage our students to consider teaching as a career.

“The program extends the range of resources. The students may have a new development to talk about that the teacher isn’t aware of.

“And we screen the teachers; we want them to be strong enough that the students are not a threat to them.”

Dr. Edwin M. (Bud) Perkins Jr., associate professor of marine biology at the university, is faculty administrator of the USC Teaching Intern Assistant Program. He has the utmost respect for today’s high school science teachers.

Teachers ‘Abysmally Underpaid’

“Times have changed. Today science teachers are the sort I wish I had had in high school,” he said. “Yet they are abysmally underpaid, overworked and understaffed.

“We wanted to discover what teachers’ needs were, and I knew what the needs of students on this campus were.

“One way you learn something is to suddenly be aware of having to teach it. . . . Teaching is not a one-way street; it is a two-way thing between teacher and student. Our students discover that it is a real thrill to generate an environment in which students teach themselves, to create an environment of learning.

“They discover the frustrations of teaching but also the thrill and intangible joy of seeing eyes light up when a student understands something. I know our students are going to be imprinted upon.”

At present, USC science students are working as interns at 20 schools. The program is co-funded by USC and the individual school district, Lucarelli said. Both she and Perkins stressed the point of community cooperation.

“It is an instance of a private institution working in partnership with the community,” Perkins said.

Glenn High’s Rita Starnes opened her chemistry lesson by telling students about the blue deposits in her swimming pool, the result of reactions among the chemicals used to keep the water pure.

“That (sort of situation) explains why we’re bothering to learn about atoms gaining or losing electrons,” Starnes said. “It is multiple ionization energy. The easier an atom can lose or gain electrons, the more likely it will bond with another element.”

As the lesson proceeded, Starnes frequently asked for comments from Ben Balough, 22, a fifth-year senior at USC who already has his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, is adding a business minor and who hopes to enter medical school. At one point he boggled the students with an explanation about energy.

“That amount of energy,” he told the class, “would bring 700 pounds of water, the amount in a wading pool, from zero degrees to boiling.”

Closer to Students’ Age

“I like Ben because he maintains such a professional attitude,” Starnes said. “Yet he is closer to these students’ age.”

“I can remember things from high school, the jargon,” Balough said. “Science has its own language--and so does high school.

“I noticed that in the first couple of weeks the students seemed shy when I would say, ‘Any questions?’ They’d sit there like bumps on a pickle. Now they want to challenge you. It is not a one-way kind of thing. With science there are so many prior skills they need. One girl, for instance, understood the chemistry but couldn’t do the math correctly.

“This has been good for me because I had a lot of this stuff years ago and it makes me think about the things I’ve learned. It’s a good review for me, and it is getting clearer in my own mind. One way to make sure you understand something is to have to teach it.”

Works Three Days a Week

Balough works with Starnes three days a week for a total of about 20 hours. He is there because Starnes attended a meeting at USC for high school science teachers and heard about the intern program, which at that time was limited to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“I said, ‘Hey, I need somebody,’ ” she said, “and I felt I would be a good role model as a teacher.

“I am science department chair at Glenn High, and I work closely with the Norwalk district regarding science curriculum. The reason is I care; I want to make sure elementary teachers have taught the children some science before they get to high school, something we can build on.

“I love teaching science. I could make twice as much in industry, but I love teaching. Coming here is not like coming to work.”

Rosa Nagaishi has been teaching chemistry at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles for 13 years. Among her prize pupils was Tracy Lee, now 19 and a sophomore at USC who hopes to become a physician specializing in either neurological research or adolescent medicine--and who has returned to her old classroom as Nagaishi’s student intern.

One day recently the two worked together to present a chemistry lesson to a class of about 20 students. Both wrote formulas on the blackboard; Nagaishi presented the major part of the lecture while Lee demonstrated the experiments. At one point Nagaishi was able to continue lecturing only because she had a capable intern to set up an experiment.

“My teaching time would be about cut in half if I didn’t have Tracy to set up the experiment,” Nagaishi said. “I have teaching assistants (to help with papers) but they do not have the chemistry background. Tracy has the background--and she comes up with ideas for demonstrations and experiments.”

Youth Works to Advantage

Lee works seven to 10 hours a week with Nagaishi, an enthusiastic teacher who has been known to loan students her computer over a weekend to stimulate interest in science. At USC, Lee carries 16 units with the option of eight more through a directed research project due in September. Both teacher and intern agree that Lee’s youth works to both of their advantages--and those of the students.

“They relate to Tracy because she is their peer,” Nagaishi said.

“I come in the morning for two hours and the kids just come up to me as a friend,” Lee said. “I help with calculus and they’ll say, ‘No way. That’s not the right answer.’ They’d never say that to a professor, a teacher. But I can show them it’s the right answer.”