"Dear Parents and Students:

I am pleased to have this opportunity to tell you a bit about myself. This is done in order to provide you with a chance to get to know me before we are assigned to each other. Thanks for your time in reading this entry.

My teaching career with young adults has been over a span of 38 years. Some of my original students from the 70's are now grandparents in their mid fifties. However, I am still young at heart and still enjoy working with young people. My first teaching position was in a rural school locale in the middle of a farming region. Sometimes the smells that drifted through the air back then still haunt my memories. But, in that tiny little community where the principal would come to the staff lounge and eat tuna out of the can, I got my feet wet as a teacher and was on my way.

In those early years I was smart enough to work on my master's degree, which not only strengthened me as a teacher, but also helped out financially. With that degree, my portfolio was enhanced and opened many doors for me. I have taught in schools for the rich and famous, for residents of the inner city, for community colleges, and am presently teaching in a public school system where the emphasis on academics is well blended with all the other aspects of a young person's life.

Most of my career has been as a high school chemistry teacher, including chemistry on three different levels. I have also taught physics and biology, but to a lesser degree. My tutoring sessions are conducted just like a classroom setting, including explanations, time for practice problems, time for questions, and with a cup of coffee nearby. Sometimes students have trouble with science concepts because they have missed something that the teacher has said. That's what I look for, those things that have been missed.

One of my passions is traveling to distant lands. At my school I sponsor trips to Europe during our school's spring break and have been across the pond well over twenty ti" less...