Mr. Bisbee

By Molly Thusius, grade 11

Walking into Mr. Bisbee’s biology class, second semester of my sophomore, I could tell that the room was tense, the people were nervous, and he was excited to get to work with a new group of students.

On the first day, we only spent about 15 minutes on the stuff that takes most teachers a whole day to go over, and then we started working on our first unit. This was better for me because I have a hard time sitting still and had already gone over three syllabus’s prior to that class.

We had a lot of labs in his class. I’ve had labs in other classes, but not nearly as many as I had in Bisbee’s class. I’m a tactical learner (hands on), so doing all of them helped me understand what was going on. Within the first week, we did our first lab. I was happy that I finally had a teacher that would teach me through the way that I learn best. 

We did a parade to learn about DNA, and we did a square dance (where he brought in live chickens and we wore bandanas) to learn about meiosis. We also did the mitosis disco dance to learn the process. Almost everyone in my class (including me) did the dance during the test because it was the best way to remember it. 

He gave us a lot of work to do, but enough time to do it. We usually had multiple class times to work on our lab reports and other assignments. 

He gave “pop” quizzes but he always hinted when they would be so we had time to prepare. He wanted to make sure we all knew what he was teaching so that we weren’t confused and knew the material.

I have landscape ecology with him this year (my junior year), he doesn’t tell us if we can use our notes until the day of the test/quiz. This motivates me to study as hard as I possibly can, just in case we can’t, and if we can, it’s always a fun challenge to see how much I can do without looking at my notes. 

Just the other day, we had a quiz we could use our notes on. I had mine out but he couldn’t see them. He excitedly asked in front of the class “Ms. Thusius, are you using no notes today?” I replied “No, they’re on my desk.” But for the rest of the quiz, I tried my best not to use them.

I am so grateful to have been assigned to his biology class last year because he taught me that hard work pays off and if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. So thank you Mr. Bisbee, for making science fun.