Mousetrap cars, egg drops and bridge building: "SECME-tized" teachers provide students with ability to reach for their dreams - Science, Engineering, Communications, Mathematics Enrichment program

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 10, 1997 by Kendra Hamilton

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - With his close-cropped sandy hair, slight build and dark conservative suit, Michael Penrod looked like an evangelist. His eyes blazed with intensity as he spoke to the crowd of more than 200 late last month. His voice rose and fell with cadences learned, he said, at his preacher father's knee.

But the young man wasn't an evangelist. He had just been named "Teacher of the Year" by SECME - the Science, Engineering, Communications, Mathematics Enrichment program, celebrating its twenty-first year of teacher training at a summer institute at the University of Virginia.

And the story Penrod was telling to a rapt audience of teachers, principals, administrators, and university and industry officials was the teacher's version of the conversion tale - a young man snatched from the brink of dropping out of school.

"And he came to my door, that young man who'd been in my dropout prevention class two years ago, and he smiled at me," Penrod said, as he wound toward the conclusion of his tale "'Hello, Mr. Penrod, I'm back,' he said. 'Are we going to build mousetrap cars this year?'

"And I said, 'Yes, we would.'

"'Will we do the egg drop this year - and bridge building and the lunar colony, too?' he asked.

"And I said, 'Yes, and yes, and no - we won't have time for the lunar colony this year.' But as he moved to his seat, I felt my heart lift with pride," Penrod said, his voice swelling and his arms rising as if to convey a blessing, "because that young man was not repeating my dropout prevention class. No, indeed. He was stepping," - and here he paused for dramatic effect - "into my honors physics class!"

At this, the teachers surged from their seats, exploding into applause and the trademark "SECME yell." While Penrod exhorted the students in the crowd to "reach for your star ... reach for your dreams," the crowd chanted "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Hand-On Stuff

Indeed, mousetrap cars, rockets made from bottles, and platforms engineered to cushion the fall of an egg hardly seem to be the stuff of which religious experiences are made. But SECME's annual summer institute seems to have just that effect upon its participants.

"It happens every year. They get SECME-tized," says Associate Director Brenda Simmons, who handles all issues related to curriculum, teacher training and liaison among school system, university and industry partners.

"Teachers will come [to the annual institute] and go home on fire," Simmons says, her voice raspy from nearly ten days of workshops and making speeches. "I've got one administrator who came up to me this year - she's the director of science for the Palm Beach County schools - and her goal is to spread the SECME model to all eighty-three schools in the district."

And just what is the model that's causing such a stir? Simmons and a task force of top educators are developing a resource guide on just that topic. But you won't find students in a SECME classroom sitting quietly in rows, eyes cast down into books or cast upwards - and glazing - as a teacher lectures. SECME kids work in teams collaborating on projects, and their teachers roll up their sleeves and get right down to work with them.

It's hands-on stuff, right in line with the latest pedagogical research. It's won SECME a nomination for the 1997 Presidential Awards. And it's won believers among a growing cadre of captains of industry as well. Karl Paul, human resource account manager for Hewlett-Packard, is one of them.

"When I judged a mousetrap car competition at Florida A&M, I watched with amazement as students figured drag coefficients, used levelers to compensate for a bumpy floor and made engineering modifications. Somewhere, somehow, a teacher inspired them," he said. "To get across physics and calculus ... we must get the students' attention and keep it."

Brigadier Gen. Charles "Buddy" Bolden, the test pilot and space shuttle commander who keynoted the Teacher of the Year banquet, agreed.

"You've got to have math and science in your tool kit, especially in this era of global competition.... It all comes back to education and training," he said.

Growth of a Concept

According to Executive Director Guy Vickers, SECME was established in 1975 by the deans of seven southeastern universities. All were aware that "it all comes back to education and training," and they were particularly concerned about the dearth of minorities in the high technology fields that they saw as key to the nation's economic health.

Then called the Southeastern Council for Minorities in Engineering, the group formed partnerships between industry and school systems. They established SECME teams composed of principals, counselors, media specialists and teachers at elementary, middle and high schools.

Each year since the group's inception, team members have participated in courses and workshops at the summer institutes hosted on a rotating basis by member universities. The university's engineering and education faculty design the courses, along with SECME "master teachers."