Focus on TUSD - August 2007

Pueblo's Lettes Named 2007 Biology Teacher for Arizona by National Association
Andrew Lettes remembers the day he decided to teach biology.

He had volunteered to help third-graders in his son's class dissect a cow's eye. One girl balked at the project, saying it was horribly gross and the most disgusting thing she'd ever seen. But Lettes prevailed, and by the end of the class, that girl was wearing the cow's iris on her finger and showing it to everyone.

"I was excited to do the dissection and I transmitted that to the kids," Lettes said. "The kids know when you're genuine about things. In that hour, I saw the genuineness of educational interaction with kids."

Now, after teaching for 13 years at Pueblo Magnet High School, he's been named the 2007 Biology Teacher for Arizona by the National Association of Biology Teachers.

Though he can't imagine doing anything but teaching, it wasn't always that way. Lettes came to the classroom after earning a doctorate in pharmacology and working as a researcher.

As he grew up in New York State, he always leaned toward science and math. From his home on Staten Island, Lettes took a ferry past the Statue of Liberty every day on his way to classes in Manhattan. He earned a bachelor's degree in science, but hadn't chosen a career until he took a couple of animal surgery classes.

"I held a dog's heart in my hand and I remember how strong that heartbeat was," he said. He went on to earn both a master's and doctorate in pharmacology before Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tenn., hired him to conduct research for three years.

In 1990, Lettes came to Tucson do more research, this time at the University of Arizona, a post he held until he earned a teaching certification and student taught at Sahuaro High School.

His first and only teaching job came suddenly. One day in August 1994, after an interview at Pueblo, he went home to find a voice message offering him the job. "It was the second best decision of my life," Lettes said. "The best decision was marrying my wife."

At a school where students don't traditionally seek higher education in the technology field, Lettes faced a challenge. Because Pueblo is a communications magnet school, Lettes decided to build on the strengths of that area to promote science.

He asked media students to tape classroom activities for a Moment of Science spot that aired on Warrior News, the TV network the media class produces. Instead of offering information on a topic, the pieces showcased processes used in the class.

He started a Bio Tech Club where students explore careers, have fund-raisers and promote biology technology. "It's fun and it's something you can be excited about," he said.

Students were excited, too, about the project he created for Pueblo's annual Fiesta. For $2, students in the Science Club's booth collected saliva for a DNA sample from students, and put it into tubes that customers wore as "DNA necklaces."

"When they asked me what they should do with the tubes, I told them to go home and give half of it to each of their parents and say, 'thank you,'" Lettes said.

He's teaching bio tech at an opportune time, when recent television programs on forensics have piqued students' interest. But Lettes started even earlier than that. Since 2000, he's collaborated with Nadja Anderson, the project director of the University of Arizona's BIOTECH project, to bring science resources into the classroom. For example, when Lettes wants to do a DNA fingerprint lab, a BIOTECH staff member comes to Pueblo with the liquid measures and the equipment in a plastic container.

"Having this cuts down on the time and expense," Lettes said. "Kids love the labs. They're really focused on it and everyone is incredibly fascinated."

This fall, his advanced biology class will be listed under career and technical education. In 2008-09, it will be a CTE class in the new Joint Technological Education District.

"I don't see a philosophical divide between career education and college preparation," Lettes said. "The students all need to know about bioinformatics, plasmids and polymerase chain reactions."

Lettes was a finalist last year for the award he won this year. When he was invited to supplement that nomination for consideration this year, he threw out the offer. "To be a finalist was great enough," he said. "I thought it was the most wonderful thing ever, that recognition of what I'd been doing."

But the coordinator for the award program urged him to apply the same day he threw out the invitation. "So I fished it out and did it," he said. "I never thought I would win. It was big surprise."

But it's the responses from students that Lettes treasures even more than the award. "It's cool when a former student will come in and spend 20 minutes telling me what my class meant to him," he said.

He savors the time when a student came up to him at Safeway to say he was the first science teacher to show him science was exciting. "He gave me goose bumps when he said he tells his wife that," Lettes recalled. "This means he tells his kids that, too, and that's how you change things. If he's enthusiastic, he'll pass on that enthusiasm."

Lettes said if he'd stayed in research, "I wouldn't have had the kind of joy I've had in my 14 years of teaching. I tell my students that I've hit the snooze button only once the whole time."

-- By Sharon Dunham
Communications & Media Relations