Maine West teacher is role model for students
Maine West High School science teacher Nate Hassman starts most days as early as 4 a.m. jogging around his Park Ridge neighborhood, but his workout is just as much mental as it is physical.
Hassman's creative juices are already flowing as he reviews the previous day's chemistry and biology classes, and contemplates the day ahead.
Are students grasping solutions to scientific problems, or are there still some who don't quite get it?
Until every student does, it's something that "gnaws at me," he said.
"The idea every kid learns at the same speed is absolutely absurd. We're starting to understand that," said Hassman, a science teacher for the last 17 years, many of them at Maine West in Des Plaines.
"It's my role as the teacher to provide experiences based upon misconceptions I see in my students. If a kid doesn't get something, that's not the kid's fault.
"I haven't developed a rich enough experience, or as a community of students, we haven't identified the misconceptions that exist with the students, and the next day we've got to create a better experience."
Those experiences are the basis of the modeling method of teaching - of which Hassman is one of the leading boosters within the suburban teaching community - which says students learn by doing experiments to uncover material themselves.
It's in contrast to the traditional teaching methodology where teachers lecture and students memorize, followed by experiments that verify.
Students in Hassman's classes conduct experiments to answer questions of nature they've asked themselves - the idea being that students perform as real scientists do, while the teacher acts less as instructor and more as seminar leader.
For instance, a recent chemistry lesson about metals and nonmetals was framed a different way in Hassman's class: what material makes for the best possible baseball bat?
Hassman developed an apparatus, attached to lab desks throughout his classroom, so bats could be safely swung indoors. Different types of bats are used: aluminum, wood and plastic.
With bat handles attached to the apparatus, students in groups of four recorded their observations of bats falling and striking a Dixie cup and rubber core placed on top of a wooden block.
"I know that's not a big deal," Hassman tells his students, "but based on your power of analysis ... maybe we can figure out what properties make for the best baseball bat."
After a round of initial lab work, students come back to their desks - still arranged in group clusters - where Hassman asks them to write questions on mini-white boards about what they'd like to discover. Most involve weight, length, speed and material.
"There's at least 50 really good questions," Hassman says as he walks from group to group. "Keep 'em rolling."
Eventually, students will be tested on their conclusions, using data they've collected through their own lab experiments. Hassman's exams are more about methodology than identifying the periodic table of elements.
"What happened today I could explain in five minutes," Hassman said after class. "A, it's not fun, and B, there's no student ownership of it."
Carly Ross, a Maine West sophomore in one of Hassman's chemistry classes, said he only gives students small hints, but ultimately they're responsible for answering their own questions.
"Mr. Hassman has a very interesting teaching style, completely different from any other teacher I've had," she said. "His method has helped me learn a lot in his class, and about chemistry in general."
This summer, Hassman will help run workshops for other teachers to learn the modeling instructional method.
It was two years ago that he attended his first workshop at Wheaton Warrenville South High School, and seminar leaders say they quickly saw his passion for teaching. They soon nominated him to attend a leadership training workshop of the American Modeling Teachers Association last summer at Columbia University in New York City, opening the door for Hassman to colead modeling workshops this summer.
"Two years ago, he was the student, and now he's going to be working on being a teacher of this type of method," said Phil Culcasi, Wheaton Warrenville South's science department chair and director of the Midwest Science Modeling Institute, which runs the seminars. "His enthusiasm is so contagious."
Hassman's energy and intensity in the classroom extends throughout the hallways of Maine West and onto the outdoor track, where he is an assistant cross-country and track and field coach. He's also a co-sponsor of Warrior Pride, the student organization of 300 sophomore, junior and senior mentors who help freshmen get acclimated to school.
Maine West Principal Audrey Haugan said she's never met anyone more student-focused than Hassman, who never accepts successes as his own.
"He doesn't ever say, 'I did this in my classroom.' It's always, 'My students, my students, my students,'" Haugan said.
Hassman called teaching his "dream job" and "what God put me on this Earth to do."
"How privileged I am to be here with these kids."
Meet Nate Hassman
Age: 39
Residence: Park Ridge
Hometown: Rock Island
Occupation: Science teacher at Maine West High School in Des Plaines
Education: Undergraduate degrees in biology and secondary education from Augustana College, and a graduate degree in biology from Northeastern Illinois University
Activities: Co-sponsor of Warrior Pride, a student mentor organization; assistant cross-country and track and field coach