Kelly Walters: Mr. James sparked white-hot desire to pursue science

This is the time of year in my profession for goodbyes. We say goodbye to our seniors and celebrate with the latest retirees, wondering who will take their place. But sometimes we bid farewell to someone who had such a powerful impact on so many that there will be no replacement. This year was one of those times.

I sat down to write something to honor my retiring friend and colleague at North Central High School, Randy James. We taught together for the past 30 years, but this recent reflection caused me to realize what a phenomenal impact he had, not only on thousands of his students, but on the entire school culture.

Being older than me, he had a head start in this teaching gig. I was amazed at his unbridled passion, endless energy, personal touch and fountain of creativity. For a time, I tried to catch up. But each time I looked up, he seemed further ahead. Then about 20 years ago, he took science education to the next level. He learned how to do DNA research in the lab at Eastern Washington University and then posed the radical question: Why can’t we do the same thing with my high school kids? And what began as a summer research experience turned into the IST (Institute of Science and Technology) – a virtual factory cranking out hundreds of budding scientists.

His passion for science education has no match. I liked science and enjoyed teaching it to kids, but for him, it was a burning fire. There were days and certain lessons when I could be as Randy called, “white hot,” but he was that way, day in and day out, for all 30 years that I worked with him.

His dream for the IST was unlike anything that I have ever encountered in education. He didn’t just challenge average kids to learn some science or perhaps go to college someday. He had the audacity to believe that all high schools kids could or should be scientists and that they could do college-level – dare I say, graduate-level – research.

His dream of the IST was so big that it busted out of the cramped, chaotic Room 201 and morphed into an entire new building, new classes and identity for North Central.

Like a runaway infection or perhaps the process of metamorphosis itself, the construction of the new addition to NC, crowned with the IST laboratories on the top floor, was the inevitable destiny of the dream. The caterpillar was radically transforming in its cocoon, and a butterfly was going to soon emerge.

The IST was already “ISTing” long before the district endorsed it or found money to put it in its own building. The IST was more a gift from Mr. James to North Central and the district than the other way around.

Certainly, without him and his dream, there would be no new building with glass windows, state-of-the-art lab bays, real-time-thermocyclers, incubators, centrifuges, nanodrop spectrophotometers and a 16-capillary DNA sequencer, adding up to millions of dollars of donated equipment. There is not any other professional-grade high school molecular biology lab like it in the nation.

Then again, there is only one Mr. James.

Perhaps more profound though is the impact that this dream likely had on the overall culture of North Central. It is not an accident that North Central has emerged as an academic outlier – an inner-city school in an impoverished neighborhood that outperforms most of the state.

Is it too far of a stretch to suggest that if we take away the Institute of Science and Technology, the North Central High School of 2017 is not recognizable? Sometimes, like the town of Pottersville, when you take away a great man with great vision, you alter the future of everything he touched.

Fortunately, for the thousands of students who had Mr. James, for the staff that were inspired by him, the dream became a reality. Kids with learning disabilities took AP classes, disadvantaged kids did genetic research and hundreds of students became scientists. Universities and laboratories across the country are peppered with these bright, motivated, confident leaders who are especially gifted.

They are not inherently superior to their peers, but are gifted by their time in North Central’s IST. For them, the lab is a second home. They can run the 42-step DNA sequencing protocol like some basketball teams run the three-man-weave. They have the confidence to do a presentation at a research symposium with a shrug, “Oh, yeah, I did that in high school.”

Most importantly, they have the gift of vision. They are not just dreaming of becoming scientists; they were initiated into that fraternity years ago. Their dream is the one planted by Mr. James long before – the dream of discovering something new, making the world a better place, maybe even winning a Nobel Prize. That’s why he’s nicknamed his students, “Nobel’s Posse.”

Mr. James always told his students that he believed someday one them would win one. He never dreamed small. Someday it will happen.

There is no Nobel category for education or inspiration, or turning dreams into realities. Perhaps someday they will create one, and if they do, I have a nomination.