Student Stories
Larry Hollingsworth
Oskaloosa, Kan.
Class of 2010, biology education
“To get students involved and engaged in science, I bring in my feelings and thoughts about the subject. I want to show them the real world.”
After years in the U.S. Air Force and the corporate world, Larry Hollingsworth realized he wanted to do the work he loved. A father of five and a former Boy Scout camp counselor, he came to KU as a nontraditional student and signed up for the UKanTeach program. This new, donor-funded teacher licensure program has an important goal: Double the number of math and science teachers graduating annually from KU by 2011.
In UKanTeach, students don’t follow a traditional teacher education program; they earn degrees in biology, chemistry, geology, physics or math, plus a secondary teaching license — not an education degree.
Students can start as early as their freshman year, and they enter the public school classroom in the very first course, UKan I. It’s just one credit hour, and students get a mini-scholarship that will cover tuition for it. UKanTeach staff members think the incentive encourages more students to give teaching a chance and ultimately will help KU graduate more teachers.
For Hollingsworth, the question of whether or not to teach is clear. He loves working with students and has been known to bring live animals — a tree frog, a chicken from his family’s flock, a neighbor’s pet boa constrictor, and more — to class make the lesson literally come alive.
“I want to get the students’ hands a little dirty,” he said. “I could put pictures and text in front of them all day, but it’s not the same.”