Her Story
Jane Nelson says she has been a teacher “for as long as I can remember.” It began with stuffed animals lined up on her bed beside a toy blackboard, and continued in high school, when her trigonometry teacher had to leave and asked her to explain the math to the class after she had explained it to her. In college, chemistry challenged her, but her major professor “believed in me, and belief is a powerful thing.” She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and education, magna cum laude, from Florida State University in 1969, and a master of science in teaching, with a chemistry major, from Memphis State University in 1971.
Her career has been spent mostly in Florida: chemistry and advanced courses in Orange County in 1969–71, chemistry and geometry in Stamford, Connecticut in 1972–74, physics, biology and anatomy-physiology in Orange County from 1980, and a two-year stretch in Pennsylvania before she returned to Orange County to teach AP and honors chemistry and, since 1990, physics at University High School. She stayed home for five years with her own children, and says that even then she was “their mother and their teacher,” turning baking cookies into a lesson on acids and bases. Both of her children went on to medical school.
Her honors are among the most extensive in this class. She received the 1988 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching, was named Florida Science Teacher of the Year in 1999 (the award appears as October 2000 on her form), and received the Disney American Teacher Award in the science, math and technology category in 2000. She was certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in the fall of 1999, was Teacher of the Year at both William R. Boone High School (1988) and University High School (1999), and was a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Scholar, Tandy Scholar and Toyota TAPESTRY Ambassador for Florida. She also won the Florida section of the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Distinguished Service Award in 2000.
Beyond the Classroom
Nelson’s dream began when University High, a newly opened and “floundering” school at the edge of the district, found that a major research park was to be built within blocks. She imagined a magnet school based on an alliance with the scientists at the university and the companies that would settle there. When others gave up, she waited, and in the meantime she wrote a $10,000 grant to integrate her curriculum with the school’s technology teacher, so that his students built circuit boards and kits for her physics students, who then built and launched a model of the space shuttle before visiting the real thing at NASA. When a new administration arrived, she gathered a team of teachers and wrote the proposal for a focus school of 400 students within a campus of 4,300.
That school became GIFT, the Global Information and Future Technologies magnet, a countywide program in partnership with the National Center for Simulation. Nelson is its teacher-coordinator and director while continuing to teach physics full time. Students must complete an internship to earn their diploma, and the curriculum includes robotics, bioengineering, the psychology of simulation and the ethics of science, with AP Psychology added at her request after she learned how important it is to computer programmers building virtual worlds. She also helped the English department rewrite Death of a Salesman as a story of a man lost in a world of computers. Her principal credited her as “a driving force behind the formation of our countywide magnet program.”
Beyond her own school, she has taught Physics Teaching Resource Agent workshops for the National Science Foundation and the American Association of Physics Teachers, mentored dozens of new teachers and National Board candidates, helped write the teacher’s edition of the textbook Physics Principles and Problems, and written articles for The Science Teacher. She was chosen as the local teacher coordinator for the American Physical Society’s national meeting in Orlando in 2002.
Philosophy Into Practice
Nelson believes her “personal charge” is to ensure that all children keep asking questions because they have felt the joy of discovering answers. When a student asks, she says, “Let’s go find out!” Her ninety-minute classes mix AP, honors and regular physics students in the same room, working in groups at lab tables with computers, oscilloscopes and lasers, and presenting their findings in mini poster sessions like those at scientific conferences. Stuffed bears with “energy pockets” hang at the front of the room, a dragon named Mighty Mo “protects the classroom from anyone who might be trying to steal momentum from a collision,” and the class sings physics songs and tells stories about Cathy Coulomb walking to Grandma’s house paying out joules of energy to Big Bad Resistors, who demand candy kisses. Even a toy penguin racing up a staircase and down a slide becomes a lesson in efficiency.
“I am teaching students first and physics second.”— from her essay, “In the Classroom”
“I believe that my children are a living message I send to a time and place I will never see.”— from her essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
In Her Own Words
“Teaching lets me give with my whole heart. It is my lifeblood, and I am happiest when I share the joy of learning.”— from her essay, “Professional Biography”
“I keep my ideals high enough to inspire the children, but not so high as to discourage them.”— from her essay, “Professional Biography”
“Being a respected member of a group is a very strong motivation for teenagers. It is so much better for them to be a part of a positive group in class, then a gang outside of class.”— from her essay, “Getting to Know You”
“That’s like learning to swim by watching the Olympics on television.”— from her essay, “In the Classroom,” on students learning physics by watching a teacher work equations
“The line between the school and the community has been crossed, and we both are the better for it.”— from her essay, “Outside the Classroom”
What Others Said
“Jane Nelson delights in learning and that delight informs her interactions with students, parents, and peers… Students typically respond that Mrs. Nelson teaches them both about science and ‘about life.'”— Anna D. Diaz, Principal, University High School
“Jane Nelson has been in Orange County Public Schools’ Hall of Fame for science teachers for many years… everyone in our district knows to call on Jane Nelson when knowledge in any of the sciences is needed.”— Jacquelyn Hughes, Director of Curriculum, Special Projects, Orange County Public Schools
“Jane Nelson is the most dedicated, talented science teacher that I have encountered over my long career… A visit to her classroom is better than a trip to Disney World!”— Henry C. Okraski, Chairman, Board of Directors, National Center for Simulation
“Jane’s class is the only place in high school where a simple elementary-school reward sticker becomes a prized possession, for it means that a student has earned a high score on a difficult exam.”— Kathleen Richardville, colleague and parent of a student
“Ms. Nelson is the kind of teacher that the Hall of Fame should want to hold up as an example.”— P. Sean Smith, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Horizon Research, Inc.
“It is obvious when watching her that she respects, cares about, believes in and helps each student reach above and beyond what they believe they can attain.”— Eve M. Hager, parent of a student
“Mrs. Nelson is honestly the best teacher I’ve ever had.”— Vivek Kalia, current student