 Dr. David N. Stoneback District K-12 Supervisor of the Sciences There is a Chinese proverb: "To know a man you must first know his memories" and so I have listed a few facts - memories - about myself below. But first, I want to share with you something of what I hope we as teachers of the sciences can bring to your sons and daughters as they study science starting in kindergarten explorations and continuously through the years until their senior year at Westfield High School. Science is a liberating subject. In one sense it permits us to calculate and predict and estimate. We stand atop a bridge and drop a pebble into the river below. Using an understanding of physics we can calculate the height of the bridge by timing the fall. The splash creates concentric rings of ripples that move outward from the point of impact. Currents in the water carry silt and are full of life - fish, plants, things we cannot see but know are there from our study of science. The temperature, density, molecular structure and intermolecular forces of the water explain much of what we observe. Sherlock Holmes once said to Dr. Watson: "Ah, my dear Watson, you see - but you do not observe". In science laboratory experiments, we ask students to first observe and then to analyze what they have observed - the data they have collected. We do this throughout the years as the level of understanding tracks with the sophistication of the questions asked. We ask them also to consider the certainty with which they have measured and observed. We hope that they will come to appreciate the significance of the uncertainty that exists in all measured quantities. We hope to raise their awareness to the fact that in science we work always, as Jacob Bronowski put it, within a "principle of tolerance". In science, and in everyday life, we make observations and judgments and predictions and draw conclusions although we are uncertain - aware that all measurements and observations contain some uncertainty. In his work, "The Ascent of Man" , Bronowski talks of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle but leads us to an understanding that all knowledge is imperfect. Students who realize that measurements made in the chemistry or physics or biology laboratory must contain uncertainties will still draw valid conclusions although they are uncertain...perhaps because they are uncertain...and they may have learned a valuable lesson about the concept of absolute knowledge or truth in all aspects of life. In my classes, over my thirty-nine years of teaching science, I have often put quotations on tests. Some students have asked "Do I have to know this?" as they read the quotation. One of the most powerful of these quotations for students in the sciences may be from the non-scientist Ernest Hemingway: "There are some things that cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man's life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to give." And so it is with science...I hope that your sons and daughter will find throughout their years of studying science, teachers who lead them to an understanding of these very simplest things - even as they struggle with the complexity, confusion, and frustration that is so often the precursor of understanding. And, if we are truly successful as educators, some of these students will learn to love the science and the learning of science. Here are a few details of my personal memories: Educational Background BS Chemistry, math minor University of Kentucky PhD Physical Chemistry, math minor University of Cincinnati,Ohio Critical Phenomena in Liquid Systems Postdoctoral Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Institut fur physikalische chemie der Universitat Gottingen, Germany High Pressure Shock Tube Studies Other Research: Exxon Research & Engineering, Linden, New Jersey Bell Labs, Murray Hill Labs, New Jersey Laser Optogalvanic Spectroscopy Rutgers University - Physics Department & Alimenterics, Inc. Medical instrument applications of laser optogalvanic spectroscopy Teaching and Supervisory Westfield High School - Department of the Sciences Teacher of Chemistry and Physics (since 1971) Chair of the Department of the Sciences (since 1978) District Supervisor of the Sciences K-12 (since 2009) Distinguished Teacher of the Year (1986) Personal Westfield resident. Married to A. Joyce (Davis) Stoneback - whom I met at Asbury College in Kentucky. Two sons: David Douglas Stoneback (deceased June 10,2007) and Steven Maurice. Three grandsons: David Harry Joseph Stoneback (16), Joseph Steven Douglas Stoneback (12) and John William Stoneback (5)
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September 9, 2010
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