She showed me the morning glory.

I was having my coffee


on the patio


and deep in thought and enjoying the cool morning. Then Heckle, one of my hummingbird buddies, started her dance from flower to flower and to my great surprise stopped at a morning glory leaf. My biology sense knew better so I looked closer and to my surprise after a month of waiting there was my first morning glory bloom.

Can you find Jeckle at the feeder?


And here are the two in tandem fight flight

I will AP, but next year.

Looking into crystal ball for answer.


After all the drama, it came down to my choice. The powers that be discussed and rescussed and as I suspected if I wanted to teach it I would have to give up the block I was given to carry out the MIC Project. I considered the offer for about fifteen seconds and decided to turn them down. As I had told the super and assistant super I am passionate about teaching but not crazy.

I will live to try again. This time we will start the planning early, and being the wide-eyed visionary that I am cursed sometings with being, the Velma Jackson ambassador core may actually become a reality where a very sharp core group of ninth graders can be the face of Velma Jackson in the advanced courses, in the academic competitions across the state and in hosting visitors to the school.

I will keep all two or three of you that read this posted.

AP or not to AP?

I was really doing a lab - really.

I am in my second week of recovery from AP Biology training and the ups and downs of my school and now district’s decision to offer or not offer it in the fall.

The week was quite intense and presented by a very capable, energetic and a good geeky youngster such as I – more on that in a moment. It got off to a rough start. I had not heard anything from my school or AP about the training, but I knew it was from Monday to Friday from 8-5 or at least I thought I knew that. When I showed up at Millsaps at 8:01 the room was full and they were in full tilt. Jane, the presenter, said you must be John. Now how did she know that?

I was the only person on the list that had missed the introductory session on Sunday night. Then the AP police chief met me at the door. I am not sure of her name but she is the Millsaps person in charge of the AP institute for all the subject areas and somehow she just sniffed me out. She told me emphatically that I would not get continuing education credits since I missed the one-hour introductory session that cannot be made up. Wow and good morning to you. I told her I had not gotten any communication –well, we sent it to the address on the application. (Later I realized it went to my other address that I had not checked). I explained that I had no need of continuing education credits since I had my national board certification.


My lab group who welcomed me and made the week very enjoyable. Liz, a Harvard graduate and Teach for America teacher at Humphreys County High School, Mark, a steadfast, star teacher and coach of the year at McComb for 33 years, and Antoine, a Jackson State graduate and creative, dedicated International Baccalaureate Teacher at Jim HIll High School.

The participation certificate so I could get my license upgraded was all I was interested in. She said I probably could get that. Probably? If not I will just leave; I have other things to do. I hung around for several days before they finally said I would definitely get my certification. Life is good. On the last afternoon session, Thursday, before we were to be dismissed early on Friday, I found out some startling news. One, I emailed my assistant principal who was standing in for our principal who euphemistically left for a better opportunity in another state. I inquired about books and who would sign the required AP audit form. She emailed me to say we would not be offering AP Biology in the fall. Not offering? You mean I rushed back to town to be able to attend this weeklong workshop for no pay and battled credit and now I will not be able to give our students this awesome opportunity.


The second best lab group who sat in front of us and worked with us on some labs and were a lot of fun.

As soon as I left on Friday morning – don’t tell the AP police chief but it was 10:15 not the scheduled noon, I headed straight for Velma Jackson (Our fearless leader had us going for days without the fifteen minute morning and afternoon breaks and by my count that was two hours so I took most of them and took an early exit – with my certificate, I might add). I came in with both guns a blazing for the assistant principal, whom I really like and respect, and the counselor, ditto. However, I gave them the full bluster – this is my last year. As soon as I find another job, even if it is in December, I am gone.

Now stop your threats, Mr. Banks, she said in her calm professional way. (I hate that she is leaving us for a principal job in an elementary school – but happy for her). And as for the counselor, I continued I will say happy whatever day it is as I always do and be cordial but professionally I will be very, very cold. (I was kidding but not happy that she had more or less promised I would be teaching AP Biology). Any way it was a great interchange and after the dust had settled. The Assistant Principal said she had ceded to the counselor’s insistence on an extra conference period to administer the grant. You have to give him something since he will not have AP. She agreed but warned her to just tell me no for if you say maybe Mr. Banks will work away at you until he gets what he wants. I confessed that was true but I had to for the kids.

Back to the other surprising news on Thursday afternoon. Since I missed the introductions I asked the presenter where she taught. Jackson, Tennessee at University School she replied. Oh really, I am not familiar with that I graduated from Lambuth College. Really. I did too. What year did you graduate? 76. Then it was clear to her why she had asked if I had been to one of the workshops before earlier in the week. I did too and gave her maiden name and remember I had long red hair. And, of course, she was biology major also – I barely remembered her but that is not unusual I do not remember most people from the distant past except abusers and superstars. Go figure. In the next class she told everyone this. I said I was hot (ha-ha) and she said yeah I was one of those guys who she hoped would speak to her (yeah right). Then I said I did not run with her because she was Greek –she thought I said freak. And everyone got a chuckle out of that.
Here she is the Vanna of Biology presenting our data from a five-day transpiration experiment.



And I thought it this AP thing was all over until I was meeting with the superintendent. His secretary had emailed me to say he wanted to meet with me about my grant and the possibility of presenting at the principal’s meeting. Wow – a meeting with the big cheese about the grant – this is finally getting somewhere. Then as I just got my throat cleared and we started talking strategy in walked the curriculum director and she asked me about AP Biology. He gave the green light to talk about it and I gave her the full picture and how I thought it was the one AP course that our kids had a chance of making a 3 or 4 on and a whole lot of other pedagogical and personnel ideas that I will leave for another time and place to share. In short the superintendent and her and my counselor will have a brief summit today to decide AP or not to AP. Isn’t life interesting?


This was outside our classroom and I am already working on a grant to have this in my classroom wall to be maintained on the classroom side and enjoyed by passersby on the hallway side.

Days Nineteen and Twenty - R and R and Home, Did I say Home!

In my sister's pool before the last leg of the journey.

I am home to my Chick-fil-A morning office (where they have free wireless), and it is good to have a long, fulfilling trip complete. Now I have many projects to do but I will take a day or two for rest and recovery. Thanks to all who made this possible.

I got to pass through Alabama again and see that awesome Saturn rocket at the rest stop and talk to my first African American in person since Darla on the elevator (Day 12)– I just shook Cassandra’s hand in gratitude for being home. And here at my office, I saw Mr. Towner, a Velma Jackson friend, and parent of one my students. Welcome home, Mr. B.

3300 miles, two long bike trips, several long runs, a lot of good food and other and, most importantly, many new friends for life and many gifts of new understandings and insights to walk the way of wonder the rest of my days. Life is good.

Days Seventeen and Eighteen - 25 hours on the road in two days

Martinsburg, WV A team

Saturday. I pushed on from Amherst to finally collapse in Woodstock, VA for the night - I left at 10:30 from Amherst after spending about three hours on my blog and bidding a proper farewell and putting my pastoral blessing on everyone in the group, I think. I had a wonderful lunch in an off the road town of Mt. something, NY and took a couple shots.


And supper at Mickey Dees somewhere along the way and my last stop before a 11:45 arrival was Martinsburg, WV whose name had to be repeated twice (I was in a coffee coma) by two very energetic teenage servers at yet another Macs. At another in the day the wireless did not work and they got a frigging F. What do we get they querried enthusiastically, An A. They started telling everyone, “We got an A!”

I could do brain surgery to pay for my trip since I stayed in an overpriced Holiday Inn Express with the worst coffee and breakfast on the planet.

Sunday. After getting up and just pushing myself I had a serendipity by finding Joe, my great longtime friend since seminary days, was still in Abingdon and offered a wonderful lunch of quiche and salad at 1:30 where Betty said we waited on you like one dog waits on another. Bless you. I also got to meet Luke after hearing about him for nine years and see his bride, Rachel, Joe and Betty's number one, who has a really cool blog, Yestertime. And see Noah their son again who got to play with Benita for a bit.

I stopped about an hour after that exhausted and wondering if I could make it to Franklin. I had two cups of coffee and again no Mac wireless and got so juiced I drove for almost five hours straight to make it to Franklin at 8:30 EST (after leaving at 8:50 am). My young friend who likes to text (aggrevated me with culinary cruelty as she texted details of their family cajun potluck fourth party) and a very timely cello piece (a precocious 12 year old on "Over the Top" on NPR)texturing the smokies musically as I passed by lifted me onward to Franklin where my dear sister had ribs which I ordered by text (along with accurate directions) ready and then fireworks and yes bed. As my friend said when I texted, “here!” - wonderful, you need to park your rides (truck and bike) for a very long time. Indeed.

Day Sixteen Summer 2010 - Farewell, Amherst, and Nano Friends

A flower of Amherst in tribute for my time in Amherst.
And now I say farewell to Amherst after a very quiet afternoon with a bike ride to see the Sun Circle at the south end of the football stadium where I met Judy Thomas and she told me about putting the circle together with a small grant from UMass and another from NASA and a bigger one from NSF to total about 30,000. Each of the stones was purchased from a quarry in Otis, MA for about 2 grand each. Three things were quiet different than expected – one, Judy’s picture on the web is from 1996

And here she is 2010
two, I thought it would be on the quad of campus (UMass has a pond with three fountains as the amoebic center of sorts)



and three, the stones were granted (no pun on their granite nature) large but not compared to the vast stadium across the street

and the tallest library in the world as Jenny referred to it. Nevertheless it was impressive and Judy is trying to get one on the National Mall. She was very gracious to return my email and meet me there to discuss her ongoing passion and future book.

And after that I got to go to downtown Amherst at last and had a wonderful light supper with a kim chee wrap and hot green tea at a place called Fresh Air and then some raspberry and vanilla Italian ice cream after seeing the majestic yellow house


and lot of one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickenson, and the majestic church

across the street which was across from Emily’s brother’s house (next door to hers) who was on the building committee in 1868.

We presented our posters about our lesson plans during the morning after an awesome pinch hit lecture by Jonathan on Nano-medicine.

And here are the people and a few posters, Farewell, Nano friends.

And first price to an tall,quiet spoken chemical and biological wiz, Anthony who teaches AP Chemistry in Easthampton, MA and has a company that tinkers with proteins to make them act in the lab like they do in the cell so drugs can be assayed.



And second prize for very innovative idea.


By Laura who teaches astronomy and geology at Ipswich MIddle School in MA and who generously gave me a ride to the Barbecue and who schooled me on my smart mouth.



And second prize for artistic merit


Farewell, grant guru, Antonietta who teaches in the "Fame" High School in NYC.


And pretty darn good from Jessica.



May you and Ben continue to do well in teaching and contracting.

And farewell, Deidre, who commuted on bike from Northampton everyday and made me jealous and who teaches Physics, Technology and English.



And farewell to the two participants who completed online course work while also doing this workshop.

Sharri who is a fireball of a teacher in Mansfield, MA and reminds me I met her husband and dog the first day soon after arrival (and I have no recollection).

Her poster

Mo who teaches after a successful career in industry and sponsors a First Robot team.

And to two other captains of industry before going into teaching

Tom who teaches in Merrifield, VA and cuts right to the point in his skillful analysis and whose picture and poster I have somehow lost.

And Cooper car Robert who got his spot in the sun as an expert on diffusion, who authored the Donelson metaphor of industry cited earlier in the blog.




His poster.

Penney's poster

And to Penney who does not like to be photographed. May you continue to thrive even when you read the directions or especially when you do. Thanks for keeping me on track.

And to Marie whose cool poster about the scale of things from cells to seed to roots and stems and leaves I have managed to delete. May you continue to enjoy life and teaching and family as fully as you do now. Thanks for your well wishes.


And to Stacey even though you are a Yankee fan. I want to learn in your class.May your students realize how lucky they are and may you have many happy cruises through life and your career.


Her Poster.

And farewell, Jared and Ilana who both teach at Framingham High School, MA. May your love continue to nourish you.




Jared's poster

Ilana's poster

And to those friends who escaped my camera

Curriculum Catherine may you find new nano knees soon.

Robert who came in with the big guy (with the number one poster each day) - I kept my promise and did put your poster on the web.

And to Laurie who out clevered me on many cases. May you keep keeping folk inside and outside the classroom on their toes and you made me feel right at home by calling me, Mr. Banks, with sarcasm as rich as mine.

And to Bryna, pronounced like China, who grew up in my favorite city on earth, NYC, and gave me new energy and direction for making kraut and pickled beets and such and a cool cooking tool, a mandolin. May math and life continue to be exuded from your happy self.

And to Paul with the reassuring math Peele principle for your students. May you give them academic and other assurance each day.

And to Bob with helped me process the day walking back to the dorm. May we get to run together sometime afterall, may your young Dominican friend make you forget all about learning communities.

And to those friends whose pictures and bios have already graced this blog

Joanne, may all the math symbols make sense and may the crown you earned for putting up with me as gel lab partner on the Jteam gleam always.

And hubby and wife team, Scott and Anita, may you find that perfect place to retire.

Michael, keep the gentle farm boy spirit and understanding you have so you may share it so gently with others.

Bruce, thanks for the pulled barbecue sandwich and a whole lot of physics insight. Keep sharing it.

Sarah, may you spoon again soon.

Buzz, the other Buzz (Aldrin) has nothing on you. May you and your company flourish.

Rich, you are the consummate gentleman. May your life continue to be as good as the pierogis and ride we shared.


Keep the fire, Nina. She shares her immense talent, energy and life and academic understanding to fortunate inner city kids in Hope Valley, RI.


Take care buddy. Andrew Angle, roomie and excellent physics and chemistry teacher and knowledge ninja and teacher at a fine private school, The Watkinson School, in West Hartford, CT.

And an added treat from my wonderful friend from Ireland who went over the top when I asked her to offer a greeting to my Mississippi friends.


And to Mort who made it all possible and Jonathan and Mark and Rob and Jenny who continued to dazzle us with their understandings and to Holly who kept us all on track.

Day Fifteen Summer 2010 - Which one is the washing machine?

Notice the gray UV beads under flourescent light now colorized by the UVA and UVB from the sun (around my neck).

And now for wrapping up Nano today. Yesterday was a process of collumation as Bruce, the Rhode Island Physics teacher, Clive Kissler reader and to the point guy said.

A physics guy who knows his stuff.

We worked through a jigsaw where four different topic groups gathered to discuss readings and then went back to their original group with representatives from each to share and then back to the full group to share led by Jonathan. A lot of collimation.

Two or three interesting things. One - the fluorescence of tide from the nano particles when exposed to UV light as Buzz suggested and his offer to give anyone a deal on science supplies from his cut out the middle guy company – http://thescienceoutlet.com/. Another was vitamins as encapsulated nano particles that would be released on demand from your body and maybe even tastes nano particles that would be released as you create your own crave satisfaction (http://www.understandingnano.com/food.html)

There was concern about health risks of nanoparticles with only two drops could destroy all microbes – both beneficial and not beneficial ones in an Olympic size swimming pool and how nano particles can attach themselves to cell and break down water. Something to thing about and consider as regulations for material production are considered.

And Robert, educated in a small liberal arts school with an excellent physics degree and in a class six – (and Cooper car driver) gave as good an illustration or metaphor for the evolution of industry as I have heard. In the horse and buggy days the horse would know the way even if the driver dozed at the reins. Then cars were developed and crowns were put in roads for water drainage and the driver had to be more involved to keep from running off the road. As new and more sophisticated technologies have been developed the crown of the road gets steeper and steeper and more and more sophisticated drivers need to navigate the car. And a whole array of technicians and employees help the directing engineer keeps the car running and producing goods, etc. Thanks, Robert.

And our group - particularly Rich (me not at first which made me step back and reflect again about how different teachers light up different students and how important diversity of all kinds is in the profession) dazzled by a very entertaining PhD in biophysics, Jenny - http://www.people.umass.edu/rossj/Ross_Lab.html - who has developed and built a highly sophisticated microscope to look at motor proteins “walking” along microfilaments in cells. The coolest idea from that was about melanin exposed to sun in melanocytes below the epidermal layer and the motor proteins carrying them to epidermal cells and then moving them to form a “parosol” to protect the nucleus of surface epidermal cells. How they know to do this and other hows are really amazing self-assembly questions. As Buzz and I reflected in one of the small groups with questions of self-assembly of life from original pools of amino acid.

To top the day Rich and I took a bike ride to Northampton – 19.96. It was a beautiful day and trail. The coolest part was only a few miles in and seeing Sofia’s. I just had to stop for a bathroom break and to our surprise it was a Polish shop that Kristina the proprietor named after her mother and is trying to preserve Polish heritage by serving excellent pierogis and offering great hospitality. Rich saw the pictures of festivals on the wall and recalled a happy childhood of participation in them. It was so refreshing to see this totally serendipitous connection.


Another amazing thing was the very kind driver who had about ten cars behind her including a lady in sunglasses and talking on his cell phone and making anger finger gestures as she abruptly stopped her car anyway to let us go by. In that brief moment she helped settle some of the chaos in this world and usher in wonder and well being across the landscape. Rich is that kind of person too.

On the way back he said he was jealous because I got all the attention as we went by (because of Red the recumbent).I told him it was my legs.

Don't you know it is the legs.

Another night with my new friends at ABC where I sampled locally made sausage that was excellent and got to ride home college style with four people in a small backseat.

Another good day at Amherst and Dr. Judy Young (http://www.astronomyandspirituality.com/contact.html), the Circle of Sun (like Stonehenge) designer at Amherst that I had heard on the 365 Days of Astronomy pod casts (http://365daysofastronomy.org/category/podcast/) last year responded to my email with a call and she is going to give me a tour after the nano workshop concludes today.

All of this is a very good day after a rough start where I put my laundry in the dryer and started up the washer (which reminded me of the early days of marriage when I was asked to put something in the washer out in the laundry room and came back asking my wife which one it was –which I should have known since I hooked it up – I guess a friend is right when she says I need to be more aware) and could not open it to cancel my stupidity – six quarters wasted but a very clean washing machine. I had everyone scrambling for two more quarters that I needed after the snack machine reset nickels and dimes instead of quarters – I am warming up to this place.

Thanks to the MIT graduate who generously gave me some calibrated plastic shims for the AFM experiment so I would not have to pay 30 dollars for sheets and sheets of them that I would never use.

Thanks to the lady who stopped for us and overcame immense social pressure and did a reset on kindness in the world.

Thanks to Penney who sat beside me and forced me to rise to at least the minimum standard on my lesson plan poster.

Thanks to Holly who greets us each day with a smile and News of the Day.



And here is Jennifer one of our fearless leaders (and pretty darn good Middle School teacher locally) just so I can say she made the blog.

Day Fourteen Summer 2010 - Is your room clean?

Sarah tried to give me a style but my hair did not cooperate fully.

I walked out of my room to get quarters for laundry and there was Ilana and Jared and Sarah asking me if I wanted to join them for dinner in Northampton at Spolleti’s. The next thing I new laundry was postponed and I was riding with the Yankee fan and marine biology major (with a tattoo of a dolphin)

Stacey who teaches physics and chemistry to seventh graders in Albany, NY

and cool hair Sarah and my pool(that's billiard) buddy, Andrew. Ben, a contractor who works with other sole proprietors in the area and is very happy to have work in this bad economy and also a connoisseur of hop concoctions and coffee, joined us with his wife Jessica who is in nano institute. Both are UMass grads. Ben got a philosophy major and chose the hands on rather than the surreal.

Dinner was good and we visited another place and home late again so laundry had to wait until morning. Suffice it to say I learned my life situation is not the only interesting one.

Yesterday was a no hands on day – everything was virtual including the tour of the Clean Room and the quite good instructional videos being developed by CHM (Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing) which we got to critique – some were quite good at this – especially Catherine from Ireland.

Now a Clean Room has never been my classroom and I was interested to learn about a Clean Room in science. Andrew used to work in one and had to roll the ceiling, walls and floors with an adhesive roller to collect all the particles and wash with an acid solution one week and a basic solution another. His brother has 100 rated Clean Room that is portable. The number represents how many particles in a cubic meter of air. I guess my room is a 10 million Room. The one at UMass is rated 1000 and the ones used for chip production in industry by robots where we humans that constantly fluff off dead skin and thousands of particles are not allowed is rated 0.

The cool idea for the week is Self-Assembly. Now this does not have to do with do-it-yourselfers. It has to do with an organism (in nature) or two polymers (in the lab) developing a structure without ongoing manipulation – it just happens after the genes trigger or the fluids are mixed. The wonders of nature continue to dazzle me on micro and macro scale. The cool structures in the lab are interesting also but no comparison. When hearing all this in a variety of ways, I had a brainstorm – during Toyota Tapestry MIC Project where we will collect and rear out all kinds of caterpillars, we can look at self-assembly in caterpillars and all the immense variety of caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies to include the blue morpho that Mark cited in my animated discussion with him and I remembered getting one from a student when we discussed diffraction in physics. He is going to send me journal articles and lead researchers names in the field – a great connection with biology and physics two of my loves in science.

And as we got a tour of the nano facility and saw how resists were put on chips by spinning at 4500 rpm

Graduate student shows surface after spinning.

and how a PPMS Dewar


The grey one cylinder on the left.

like a big carafe with a vacuum layer a smaller carafe inserted with a liquid nitrogen layer and another carafe inserted with a Helium bath layer and then the internal carafe (housing the tested sample) could lower temperatures to 4 K (that is -269 C or in the -400s F) and then not only temperature could be manipulated but current as well. But the coolest part was a fill-in since the other part of the lab was under construction. Stefan from Germany and PhD student did the classic liquid nitrogen demo with the balloon where it shrunk as the temperature was lowered and then expanded back to shape without bursting when removed from the liquid nitrogen. However, I had never seen the process in reverse. He poured liquid nitrogen in a water bottle, capped it tightly and placed it in a garbage can. As the temperature rises as the nitrogen goes from liquid to gas it needs more room and . . . you can guess the rest. It took quite some time but the shot was heard round the room (don’t try this at home).

Be patient or rewind toward the end.

The pretty girl award goes to Ilana.

She teaches something interesting at Framingham High School I am sure. Ask her friend boy, Jared in an earlier blog if you like.

And finally Jonathan dazzled with two nano impact technologies in his lab. One will coat the surface of ships with nanoparticles that are hydrophobic and "push" away the water. This particles can put "painted" on at the same cost and will save $5000 dollars per day/ per ship in fuel costs. This research is funded by the US Navy and another project is like the non-newtonian fluids such as corn starch and water where someone can walk across in a kitty pool filled with such. The rapid stretch caused by your weight and running through makes the fluid rigid. The same thing happens with a kevlar vest interspersed with nano layers - the rapid "stretch" of the material caused by the bullet causes it to firm up and say no to death or injury - and the vests are lighter as well.