In the Flower Garden

Abstract

I'm not exactly sure how I ended up as a biology teacher. parents were neither teachers nor scientists, though they had the attributes of good teachers: inquiring minds; a desire to share their learning with others; and the patience to do it well. They were the best of teachers because they seemed to do it effortlessly, unlike many parents who are self-conscious in their teaching, who try too hard to get their children to learn. Some of my clearest childhood memories are of my parents sitting in the living room reading and telling each other, and my sister and me, the fascinating items they'd just discovered. Though my background might explain my interest in teaching-I was imbued with a desire to share learning with others-it doesn't explain why I'm teaching biology and not literature, my mother's passion, or political science (as a tavem-owner my father talked politics all day!). Science just doesn't come into the picture; in fact, my mother was one of those people who lumped together science and math and professed a loathing for both. But a closer examination reveals a slightly different picture. There was one aspect of science that my mother didn't hate: botany. She still has a school certificate proclaiming, in Gaelic, her excellence in botanical science. She always loved growing plants, both indoors and out. Maybe it was kneeling beside her in the garden, planting and weeding, that first sparked my interest in living things, in watching growth and Yet ironically, when I got to college and majored in biology, botany held no interest for me. I liked gardening, working with plants, but the more I learned about plants, the more confused I became. There was just too much variability. Most animals are diploid, but plants could be haploid, diploid, triploid or even tetraploid! The multiplicity of flower structures also seemed unfathomable, and I My mother . . . always loved growing plants ... Maybe it was kneeling beside her in the garden, planting and weeding, that first sparked my interest in living things, in watching growth and change.