Walt Scheider

The first I ever heard of The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching was when I partnered with Walt Scheider.

I was in need of a cooperating teacher for my observation and student teaching assignments at The University of Michigan's School of Education. It was my senior year at Michigan. I had switched my major from Aerospace Engineering to Education (Physics Major/Math Minor) at the end of my sophomore year. There was some tumult involved in that road fork.

In any case, I was now on a path to become a high school physics teacher. On purpose. I needed a master teacher to work with. In an unusual embarrassment of riches, Michigan had two physics teachers-in-training that year. The routine was to work with the veteran teacher at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School.

But Dr. Jean Krisch, the best physics instructor I had at Michigan, told me about Walt Schieder. He was the physics teacher at Ann Arbor Huron High. Krisch's daughter had been a student in Scheider's class, and he came highly recommended. Although I did not set the river on fire in Krisch's Physics 401 course, I admired her immensely and set off to make arrangements with Scheider.

Walt Scheider held a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard. He was a successful research scientist. One year—deep into his career—he turned down a $125,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to go teach high school physics. So there he was at Ann Arbor Huron High.

It was about that time that PAEMST was born. Scheider applied that very first year. And he won. He deserved it. By all accounts, Walt Scheider was an outstanding physics teacher.

Two years later, I show up—unannounced—looking to horn in on his classes. "I don't think I can take a student teacher this year because I'll be carpooling," was his response to my proposal. I clearly came across as an intelligent, confident, well-prepared candidate. In reality, he never had a student teacher and wasn't necessarily looking to take one on.

But I was persistent. I somehow convinced him I wouldn't interfere with his carpooling agenda or permanently damage his students. I treasured the time I spent in the presence of this master. I soaked it in as best I could. He gave me very little time in front of the class. Arrangements were looser in those days, and I was something of a Guinea pig working with him.

What little time I did have in front of his classes was enough to point out—at least to me—that I wasn't as good as he was. I wanted to be that good. But I wasn't.

I feared that at the end of it all, he would counsel me into considering an alternate career path. Instead he wrote me a glowing recommendation that I did not feel worthy of. We kept in touch, off and on, for years after I moved out to California. He died just a few years ago.

Walt Scheider is a bright star in the constellation I use to steer the ship of my curriculum.