Summer Jobs That Pay Handsome Dividends : Education: Fellowship programs let teachers take what they’ve learned back to the classroom--benefiting them, students and industry.
Jim Arnn, a Hoover High School science teacher, will have an interesting tale to spin when he tells his students how he spent his summer vacation.
Arnn, who holds a Ph.D in biology, is helping researchers at La Jolla-based Advanced Tissue Sciences develop quality control tests for a skin replacement product that is undergoing clinical trials by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The summer job is one of 16 fellowships arranged by the San Diego County Office of Education’s Industry Fellows Program. Fellowships for high school teachers, which were exceedingly rare before the mid-1980s, are spreading rapidly, according to academic and industry leaders.
An estimated 90 fellowship programs now exist nationwide. They were created by industry and academic leaders who hope to improve the academic performance of high school students by forging stronger links to high school teachers.
Although the fellowships are designed to produce better students, they are also viewed as a way to re-energize teachers who may be worn down from the demands of classroom teaching.
The fellowships give teachers a firsthand look at life outside the classroom, particularly in laboratories operated by high-technology and biotechnology companies. In San Diego, participating companies are asked to pay fellows $4,800 for eight-week programs.
Fellowships aren’t “make-work” positions, said Sandy Slivka, a senior scientist at Advanced Tissue Sciences who serves as Arnn’s “mentor.”
Arnn, for example, is working side-by-side with Advanced Tissue Sciences researchers who are creating the improved quality control tests for the company’s proprietary skin-replacement products.
Steven Eisler, a Mt. Carmel High School teacher, is helping Hewlett-Packard “link” various product specification software packages, according to Mike Borer, a Hewlett-Packard employee and Eisler’s mentor. Eisler’s work will give the company a better understanding of how to meet customers’ needs, Borer said.
Although fellowships are generally limited to high school teachers, Advanced Tissue Sciences also funded a six-week internship for Erin Tracy, who will be a senior at Poway High School in the fall.
Tracy, who is conducting product testing for Advanced Tissue Sciences, said the work reaffirmed her desire to take college-level chemistry and biology classes.
“This is real, important work,” Tracy said. “It’s not just something to do in a classroom for a grade.”
That’s the goal of fellowship programs: ensuring that what’s being taught in the classroom mirrors the skills and knowledge in demand by industry. Students benefit from the fellowships because participating teachers agree to incorporate what they’ve learned into classroom lessons and demonstrations.
Fellowship proponents hope to eventually expose 10% of the nation’s science and math teachers to the programs.
An estimated 15% of Bay Area teachers have won fellowships, but the national average remains “pretty low. . . . We really need to give these programs a boost,” said Marie Earl, executive director of Industry Initiatives for Science and Math, a Bay Area group that arranges fellowships at more than 100 companies in that area.
In San Diego, teacher applications have outpaced available fellowships each year since the program began operating in 1985. This summer, the program drew 45 applicants but offered just 16 openings, said Florine Belanger, coordinator for the county’s Industry Fellows Program.
Belanger linked the dearth of fellowships to the stalled economy and the lack of large, locally based firms that are more likely to provide them.
But Belanger applauded the county’s young but fast-growing biotech industry for providing leadership in San Diego: This year, 11 of the program’s 16 positions are at biotech firms. The proliferation of biotech fellowships was driven by a request from the San Diego-based Biomedical Industry Council, a biotech trade group that strongly urged its members to fund fellowships.
San Diego’s biotech firms, along with high-tech firms elsewhere in the United States, have a vested interest in improving the skills of high school graduates, according to educators and industry leaders.
“Companies are looking at an educational system . . . that’s not meeting their needs,” said Lauren Williams, associate director of the College Park, Md.-based Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology, which helps educators and business arrange fellowship programs.
“Industry is seeing students . . . who, in many cases, are not ready for the workplace or to start higher education,” Williams said. “They also realized that Washington, D.C., isn’t going to solve this problem . . . that it’s something you have to attack at the community level.”
“I like the idea of bringing the teacher in instead of the students because (the fellow) will come in contact with 150 kids this year and 150 more next year . . . so it’s like a domino effect,” said Steve Bezuk, manager of chip-connection technology at Unisys’ San Diego operation. “We give the teacher a look at the real world . . . and he in turn lets them know what it’s like out here.”
For Arnn, the summer program has reinforced his desire to help high school students understand that there are real-world applications for the knowledge gained in classrooms.
“We have to redefine our roles as teachers,” Arnn said. “When people understand that there is a real purpose for learning, then it’s more than just interesting, it’s truly interesting.”
Even with his advanced degree, Arnn has been challenged by his work in Advanced Tissue Science’s research laboratory.
“It reminds me of the hell it is being ignorant,” he said. “I’m remembering situations where you have to struggle . . . which should give me a better (link) to students in the classroom.”
Although fellowships are supposed to forge stronger links between individual teachers and industry, the programs often prompt wider relationships between industry and academia.
An estimated 85% of corporations that host a fellow end up sending mentors into their fellow’s classroom, Earl said, and a similar percentage donate used research equipment to schools.
