I was born in Cleveland Ohio and
at the age of four our family moved to Wauseon, Ohio. Wauseon is a small town in
northwestern Ohio named after the Chief of the Pontiac. I attended public school and
while in high school I decided that I wanted to become a teacher and make a commitment to
improving science education as I had a science teacher who made science very
uninspiring. My brother and I used to do quite a bit of experimenting as youngsters
and during one of our experiments blew the foundation off of our home. Boy, did we
have a lot to learn as future science teachers.
Upon graduation from high school I
attended Bowling Green State University earning a B. S. degree. I then taught science and
coached for a year in Pettisville, Ohio, (another very small town.) After teaching
for a year I married my wife, Pat, and we moved to Warren, Michigan to begin our teaching
careers together. We then enrolled at Eastern Michigan University where I earned a
Masters of Science and Educational Specialist Degrees in the area of physical
science. I continued to pursue my education and in 1972, earned my Doctorate
from Wayne State University in Instructional Technology.
I have taught for over
thirty-five years with experience at middle, high school, university and
retired as a Professor at Macomb Community College for Physical and Environmental Science and author of
two science textbooks, Analyzing the Physical Universe, and Physics Is FUNdamental. I am a
certified instructor with two national curriculum projects, Operation Physics (OP) and
Constructing Physics Understanding (CPU), which target the improvement of physics
education in the public schools. My commitment to improving physical science
education involves workshops for teachers that are designed to inspire and improve science
teaching. You see I'm still working on that commitment made almost forty years
ago.
I believe that science is
a process that begins with a problem and involves the search for information and the
appropriate application of that information to solve the problem. There will be many times
that the information will not be perfect but it will show trends or directions that will
lead to the best solution. This process can be compared to solving a puzzle, or riddle or
your favorite mystery.
My wife, Pat, and I have
two sons, Mark and Matthew. We also have four grandchildren who keep us
busy. Pat is a special education consultant and enjoys her rose garden very
much. We have lived in the same house for over thirty years.