Within a special classroom in Cleveland Hall, Lynda Paznokas gives her students — tomorrow’s K – 8 teachers — the confidence they’ll need to reach their pupils, by putting them into the shoes of those youngsters.The walls of her classroom are filled with bulletin boards that could be found in any K – 8 class, and the counters and back rooms are filled with science experiments — completed, in progress and yet to be tried. Butterflies flit under a net, pollinating the small plants on the table below, while part of the ceiling displays the star constellations as they were on Dec. 25, 2000.
Always a student
According to her dean, Judy Mitchell, Paznokas’ students maintain contact with her, asking for help in their own classrooms. “She has returned from holiday vacations, just because she was asked, to retrieve information for a student teacher struggling with an assignment,” declares Mitchell. “She wants to make sure every one of her students is successful.”
Associate professor Paznokas starts by teaching her students how history and politics, such as Sputnik and the 1983 Nation at Risk study, impacts the teaching of science. Then the students assume the role of children and learn the scientific process by digging into various science curriculum and kits. The butterflies and growing plants are two of these kits. By this learning method, WSU graduates can walk into any school district in the state and say they know and have worked with the curriculum being taught.
They compete in their own Invention Convention and take science projects to the community, such as the recent Family Fair at Sunnyside Elementary and a camp for 5th and 6th graders at Camp Larson on Coeur d’Alene lake.
Paznokas is an elementary teacher with 16 years experience. Her passion is “to see these students get excited about teaching science, and to connect it to other subjects,” such as reading and writing. She wants her students “to help children be excited and curious about the world.”
Former student Joel Haerling describes Paznokas as “an example to me of how to make science exciting and engaging for both the classroom teacher and the students.” Haerling related that his favorite activity was making Alka-Seltzer rockets. “I taught this activity to children at several science fairs while in (Paznokas’) class,” he exclaims.
Paznokas began to love science while in the Girl Scouts. She earned her bachelor’s degree from WSU in 1972, and the love grew as she began teaching. She started working as adjunct faculty for Portland State University, where, she says, there were many good programs for training teachers.
After Portland, she worked in various faculty and administrative roles at Northern Arizona University. Then in 1999, Paznokas returned to WSU as a Boeing Distinguished Professor of Science. She says she was “interested in a university with a program that supports science in this way.”
Paznokas currently works with two other professors who teach math and social studies, and they use the same theme to tie together the three subjects for the students. This year’s theme is the diaries of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
And she is also working with her husband and fellow WSU faculty member, Skip Paznokas, on creating a Master’s in Science Education for Elementary Teachers, which she “hopes will help to develop more science leaders in the state.” She also wants to do more with informal education, since about 25 percent of education professionals work in informal sites such as museums and aquariums.
This week she will receive the Marian E. Smith Faculty Achievement Award, for significant and meritorious achievement in teaching. To her, the award is a validation for the importance of what the Department of Teaching and Learning is doing in the preparation of future teachers. “It’s a validation for all of us because we work as a team preparing teachers.”
Congratulations, Lynda Paznokas!
