2007 Teacher at Sea: Rory Wilson

Cruising in the Indian Ocean trade winds aboard the R/V Roger Revelle made Rory Wilson happy. Teaching, technology and time at sea are his passions and creating a web-based education program during an oceanographic research expedition brought them all together from June until August 2007. His unique opportunity-sponsored by JOI Learning in partnership with the expedition’s Chief Scientist, Will Sager-placed him on board the Ninteyeast Ridge site survey expedition (Sea90E).

Serendipity
How does a school teacher find his way to the Indian Ocean? At the time, Rory was coaching high school cross country in Meeker, Colorado with another science teacher, Bev Devore, who is the President of the Colorado Association of Science Teachers (CAST). Bev heard of the JOI Learning (now Deep Earth Academy) Teacher at Sea opportunity through CAST in April 2007 and knew that it would suit Rory. She was right.

With his background in information systems, Rory helped develop the interactive website Sea90E for the Sea90E expedition. Through this website, students interacted with scientists almost daily-with Rory as the critical link. During the expedition, seven schools in different countries from India to New Zealand to several parts of the U.S. participated interactively via the website, which students helped design.

Rory thrives on challenging projects and JOI Learning gave him the flexibility to be innovative. This component of Sea90E is what attracted him the most. While aboard the Revelle, he wrote, “I truly enjoy the very strange blend of high-technology education and core research, and being in the middle of the ocean.”

Celestial Navigation
Although Rory currently teaches in Seattle, he has lived more years outside the United States than stateside-and oftentimes his home has floated. He grew up in Juneau, Alaska where he worked summers on fishing boats and became an avid sailor. While living in Poland for three years he explored northern Europe by sailboat and co-authored a Baltic Sea cruising guide. In addition, he has extensive ocean sailing experience in the Pacific, Atlantic, and North Sea-navigating by the stars when necessary. During the summer of 2006, he piloted a 44-foot sailboat from Seattle to San Francisco. His son, Ken, who currently has an academic scholarship to Arizona State University, has shared some of Rory’s sailing adventures. The sea may be in Rory’s blood but he stays both fit and mentally balanced by bicycling and running long distances.

Before the Sea90E adventure tempted him into the middle of the Indian Ocean, Rory had planned to spend some of the summer building his own self-designed fiberglass and Kevlar boat. At almost seven meters long, one meter wide and with a small forward cabin for sleeping, it is like a large ocean kayak. He launched the hull in 2006, tested its rowing prowess, and had planned to try out kite sails in summer 2007. Eventually, he wants to take it on an ocean passage.

A Really Awesome Teacher
Before becoming a teacher, Rory had a career rich in diverse experiences. He received his BS and MS degrees from the University of Arizona, focusing on information systems technology and working as a computer systems technician. He was then with the TRW Corporation for over ten years, often working and living internationally. Initially he did network and systems implementation, then employee training, and later engineering technology transfer and operations assessment. Along the way he discovered his gift as an educator, which he explored further while teaching for “English Language Learners” in Poland.

Rory has been teaching mathematics to middle school students in Colorado since 2002. He says that he likes focusing on middle school because, “students get on track during this time…one way or another.”

“I work extensively with Title I students, who actually need a bit more help with things, and I also work with the gifted and talented students who learn in different ways. This is very interesting, and I really care about students and hope they do well. This matters,” he adds.

When Rory applied to the announcement soliciting a teacher to participate in Sea90E, his 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at Barone Middle School sent along letters of support. They wrote how he engaged their interest and taught them to make real-world connections by using their math skills for projects such as building tree-houses and cool cars out of foam. His students and school administrators then took pleasure in organizing a school assembly to surprise him with the news that he had been selected as the teacher on the expedition.

It may have been inevitable that Rory would eventually teach, but when asked, he notes a few experiences that affected his career path. An important one was his 1988 MS degree in organizational theory from the University of Arizona.

“As a part of my masters program, I worked with development-learning theory and computers. I have always been interested in how people interact and learn, using computers to help or channel information. However, I have been more focused on the people side of computers and not with computers as a technology toy.”

And it’s his interest in people that makes Rory, in the words of his students, “a really awesome teacher.”