{"id":6243,"date":"2017-11-03T03:17:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T19:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/alumni-perspectives-dr-susan-barkdoll-teaches\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:08:07","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:08:07","slug":"alumni-perspectives-dr-susan-barkdoll-teaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/alumni-perspectives-dr-susan-barkdoll-teaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni perspectives: Dr Susan Barkdoll on who teaches who"},"content":{"rendered":"

Science educator and Curtin Lifetime Achievement Award<\/a> winner Dr Susan Barkdoll reflects on 30 years of teaching, from kindergarten to university level in San Bernardino, California.<\/p>\n

“On a cloudy March day in 1992, Emeritus Professor Lesley Parker AM<\/a> greeted me at a national science teachers conference in Boston, Massachusetts. She told me about the wonderful staff at Curtin\u2019s Science and Mathematics Education Centre [now the STEM Education Research Group<\/a>] and encouraged me to study a Doctor of Science Education.<\/p>\n

As a science educator, you have a grandiose notion that you\u2019re going to change the lives of children but you discover it\u2019s the children and the other teachers that change you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited and invigorated by my students. I\u2019ve taught from kindergarten to university, but I enjoy teaching third grade the most. They still believe in Santa Claus. They get excited by microscopes. You feel like you have a mountain of knowledge and they\u2019re so thrilled by it.<\/p>\n

This year, I had a student who didn\u2019t want a video game for Christmas \u2013 he wanted a microscope! He\u2019s turned it into a verb, saying sentences like, \u2018I\u2019ve got to get up early and microscope it!\u2019. Another year, I brought bearded dragons into class and one of my students was so excited she researched their breeding habits. When the female started laying eggs, I called my student and the two of us watched it give birth. It was amazing.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in my class, you\u2019re in my heart forever. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re five or thirty-five-years-old: you\u2019re still my kid.<\/p>\n

I carry pictures of my former students. I\u2019ll go to their high school graduations. I\u2019ll go to their weddings. In psychology, you learn a child\u2019s personality is formed by the time they\u2019re around five-years-old, so I\u2019ve always thought of them as little people. Now many of them have become medical doctors or forensic scientists. It\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n

When I received the lifetime achievement award, it was difficult not to get emotional because I kept thinking about how my students inspire me. They have overcome so much.<\/p>\n

We have a high poverty rate in San Bernardino. Most of my students are on free and reduced lunch. So if I can give them hope it\u2019s going to help them down the road \u2013 perhaps reduce the chance of them joining gangs or getting involved in crime.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so grateful to all of those at Curtin who improved the quality of my life, which has enabled me to pass on my knowledge. I feel like Winnie-the-Pooh: I\u2019ve got to go through the Hundred Acre Wood to gather honey and help my friends. There\u2019s still so much to do!\u201d<\/p>\n

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