  | Milken Award winners Peter McLaren and Ulysses Gallman know how to turn junior high students on to science | |||||
Wizards in the ClassroomBy Chris Poon Peter McLaren turns on his Bill Clinton “Bubba” voice and doles out white beaded bracelets that unexpectedly change colors when some of his eighth-grade students strap them on. Ulysses S. Gallman III asks his students to compute the horsepower of “yo mama,” who happens to be able to do 12 leg pulls in 18 seconds. Then he has them bench press 50 pounds (more if they’re full of brawn and bravado, far less if they’re unwilling) as part of a physics lab. Both science teachers mix wit, wisdom, and dozens of unconventional teaching tools to create powerful classroom chemistry. And last fall, that chemistry paid off. Gallman ’76 and McLaren ’93 were the Rhode Island recipients of prestigious Milken National Educator Awards. Each winner received $25,000 in recognition for their quality teaching, professional leadership, and engagement with families and the community. Gallman, of the Narragansett Pier School, and McLaren, of Archie R. Cole Junior High School in East Greenwich, were nominated for the award without their knowledge. And, until they heard the hoots and hollers of cheering students in their respective school assemblies, each had no idea he had won. Weeks later, McLaren was still stunned. “I give the glory to God,” said the 46-year-old former grocery store manager, who credits his wife, Claudia, with encouraging him to excel in his second career and the URI professors who gave him the confidence to make the switch. Peter McLaren grew up in Warwick and North Kingstown. His father was a grocer who “engaged people in the old-time butcher, across-the-counter type style,” he recalled. His mother wielded “the iron fist” at home, what with six kids to keep track of. “They were my first teachers,” he said. When he graduated from North Kingstown High School in 1973, he assumed he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. McLaren earned an associate’s degree in business from the Community College of Rhode Island and went to work for Star Market and then Almacs. In 15 years’ time, he had become an assistant store manager with potential to climb even higher in the retail business ranks. The problem was, he wasn’t happy. What he did love was the chance to help high school kids working at the market. “I’d be talking with them and trying to get them to do production on time or helping them deal with customers,” he said. His sister Mary, a math teacher at East Greenwich High School, would drop in on her brother while shopping and marvel. “She’d come in and see the kids that she had a hard time dealing with in class, and here I was, I got them to have a smile on their faces,” he recalled. After taking a few undergraduate science classes at URI, McLaren was hooked on learning. But he needed an audience to share his enthusiasm, and Mary’s prodding for him to become a teacher began to take hold. Finally, in 1990, he took the leap. He accepted a $33,000 pay cut to work part time while enrolled in URI’s education program. His lucky break came when a science teacher at Cole Junior High retired, and the school district hired him, fresh out of student teaching, to fill the spot. “In the nine years what’s changed me the most is that when I first started teaching, I wanted the kids to give me the answers. Now I want them to ask good questions, and I don’t want to be the source of their answers,” said McLaren, who also serves as the district’s science curriculum coordinator. “I let them stumble, fall, think, hypothesize. It’s all the process.” Chances are, even if you’ve never met Ulysses Gallman, you’ve heard him. For more than 20 years, Gallman was the fast-flowing, smooth-talking deejay for campus radio station WRIU and later for alternative rock station 99.7X. His on-air name was simply Ulysses. But by day, he’d spin the laws of motion and force as Mr. Gallman, a science teacher for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders at Narragansett Junior/Senior High School. Today the middle school has split off from the high school and is known as the Pier School, but Gallman’s tune has hardly changed at all as he teaches the eighth graders all they ever wanted to know about science. Students, he said, always learn best when they’re confronted with a mystery they can solve with hands-on materials they can mix, bend, lift, or otherwise manipulate. “I’ve always been the kind of teacher who felt my students should be doing things,” he said. And, when they do have to solve pencil-and-paper problems, Gallman has them apply formulas to real-world (or close to it) examples, such as “yo mama,” the power lifter. Gallman intended to study marine biology as an undergrad-uate at URI, but, he admits, his focus strayed from his books as he spent more and more time at the campus radio station. Eventually he pursued the profession of his mother and grandfather: teaching. “It was sort of natural to me,” said Gallman, who quickly packaged his love for the sciences with his engaging personal style. “I am really enthusiastic about teaching and learning, and I guess that translates to the kids. I can even make the writing of a lab report exciting!” By the end of eighth grade, his students have logged in data on computer spreadsheets, mastered what he calls “baby physics and baby chemistry,” and captured their science experiments on videotape. They’ve also learned some “rules” Gallman hopes they’ll take with them into high school and out into the world. Rule 1: Follow directions. Rule 2: Pay attention to the details. And for added inspiration, Gallman reminds them of his favorite motto, which is prominently displayed on a banner above his blackboard: “You never really learn to swim until you’re in water over your head!” His work has won him other educational accolades, including the 1994 and 2000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. When he’s not doing the stuff that wins him awards, he produces a cable TV dance music show, “Ulysses and His Party Thaaang.” The fast-paced life will soon slow down for Gallman, 48, and his wife, Kim, a Warwick art teacher. The couple are expecting triplets this spring, and they’re planning on using the $25,000 he won from the Milken Family Foundation on just one thing: diapers. Chris Poon, a former Providence Journal reporter, is a graduate student in URI’s School of Education and a student-teacher at Stony Lane School in North Kingstown. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Wakefield. |
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