Like the nuclear membrane seems to enjoy shielding a cell’s nucleus, Tom Harding seems to enjoy teaching.
The Rockridge Secondary biology and physics teacher recently earned the prime minister’s award for teaching achievement – due in part to his unbridled enthusiasm.
After teaching three classes in a row, Harding bubbles with positivity, using the words: inspiring, exciting (twice), love, neat, excellent (four times) and super-jazzed. He amplifies many of those words by adding “really,” or “deeply,” which he utters a combined 14 times in 14 minutes.
After growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario, Harding was working a summer job between semesters studying biology at Queen’s University when he had something of an epiphany.
He was fascinated by science. But he also took great pleasure in his job instructing tourists on the finer points of tennis and windsurfing.
“I thought: Maybe I’ll give teaching a go because it might marry two of the things I’m really, really interested in.”
During the early or larval stage of Harding’s teaching career he stood in front of chalkboards in Mexico and in West Africa. But it was back in Halifax that he found inspiration among professors, textbook writers and curriculum specialists.
Years later, Harding credits the Maritimes and B.C. for a “cross fertilization” that shaped his teaching style.
He stayed in Nova Scotia for about five years before deciding to go to grad school. As he explained it, he needed to: “take time where I’m just thinking about science teaching.”
He picked UBC but was uncertain about what would come next.
“I actually wasn’t planning on going back to the classroom. It wasn’t necessarily what the path was,” he says.
But after earning his degree he realized why he’d enjoyed teaching so much in the first place.
“I missed youth,” he says. “I missed kids.”
The key to reaching those kids is a deep interest in the material, Harding explains.
When the conversation veers into the subject of his reading habits, Harding mentions that he just started a new book about passenger pigeons. It’s a subject he doesn’t know anything about, but he’s anxious to learn.
“I like birds. My students love birds,” he says. “Because I’m so deeply interested in that material, that’s going to be infectious to them.”
The goal is to make the classes accessible and enjoyable “but also rigorous.”
A hallmark of Harding’s teaching style is getting kids out of the classroom to inspect the ecology scampering along the forest floor of Lighthouse Park.
“I never looked at the forest floor the same way again,” states former student Laura Cameron in a press release. “He opened our eyes to the beautiful natural world in a new and exciting way.”
“I still remember the Latin names for all the dominant coastal trees,” agrees Tara Russell in a letter commending Harding.
Russell, who also graduated from Queen’s University with a degree in biology that she parlayed into work at a non-profit conservation group, credits Harding for setting her on a path.
“He inspired my love of biology, pushed me to achieve great things, and taught me how to love to learn.”
In 2011, Harding’s leadership students were responsible for the school getting $20,000 worth of solar panels through a grant from Solar BC.
“What I want is for them to be super jazzed about the material that they’re interested in,” he says.
For Wesley McPherson, what distinguished Harding was that he never talked down to his students.
“We could have been colleagues in a lab with him for the way he treated us,” he states.
Harding found out he was getting the regional award for teaching excellence through a confidential email.
“That was one of the most deeply humbling experiences,” he says, thanking his colleagues for putting his name forward and calling the accolade an “absolute honour.”
In terms of his longevity, Harding says he’s become adept at focusing his energy on the spheres where he can have the most influence.
“I’m working as hard or harder than I’ve ever worked before,” he says. “That’s cool, that’s keeping me motivated.”
Discussing his approach to teaching, Harding answers simply.
“I just love thinking about science.”
