By Ashwin Johri

This fall, the Collegiate faculty welcomes a new Upper School science teacher, Vonita Giddings, who brings her broad experience in work for the government and other schools in Virginia. She describes herself as very creative, and “willing to help students think outside of the box.” She is incredibly excited about her first year working at Collegiate, even though she has not been able to experience the school in its entirety due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Giddings’ curiosity and interest in the sciences stems from her experiences in hospitals, because of the number of people in her family with chronic illnesses. Her high school, IC Norcom High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, was one of the few in the state that allowed students to select a major to specialize in, and so she decided to major in life, health, and environmental sciences. Giddings was not initially interested in becoming a teacher; however, coming from a family full of teachers, she stated, “it was something that I was supposed to do.” After teaching classes and tutoring often in high school, college, and graduate school, she discovered that she was a great teacher. She explains, “once I really started enjoying the classes, more and more opportunities came, and I just kind of never looked back.” Although Giddings initially wanted to explore everything possible to her, she was “bitten by the education bug” and plans to resume her studies in other fields at another time. The research that she already has done includes projects on flounder, rats, and frogs, and work on animal models for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Collegiate Upper School biology teachers Vonita Giddings and Sandra Marr explored the Mooreland outdoor classroom to gather materials for their biology classes.

In their venture, Giddings and Marr found a young southern two-lined salamander.

After doing internships at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service, Giddings proceeded to teach biology and research classes at Virginia State University (VSU), middle school science classes at Fairfield Middle School in Henrico County, and International Baccalaureate biology, art-infused biology, Middle Years Programme biology, and Advanced Placement biology at Henrico High School. Most recently, she joined the MathScience Innovation Center, where she orchestrated the Metro Richmond STEM Fair, a very competitive regional fair for middle and high school students. High-placing projects enter the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, where “about 1,800 [out of tens of millions of students] earn the right to compete for nearly $5 million awards bestowed each May at the […] fair.” She describes the MathScience Innovation Center as a “place where I get to be really, really innovative, and pretty much anything that I can dream of, I can do,” citing the Metro Richmond STEM Fair as an example.

Giddings arrived at Collegiate at the reference of another Upper School science teacher, Steve Oden, who described Collegiate as a place for Giddings to step outside of the box and teach students who were willing to learn, and she was thrilled.

Giddings describes her first year at Collegiate so far as amazing, including the proposed reopening plan, the supportive and loving faculty and students, or the incredible amount of resources she has access to. One small but noticeable change was that students say “thank you” when leaving the classroom, which she described as “weird, in an awesome way.” She had worked with some current Upper School science teachers before coming to Collegiate and has enjoyed meeting new coworkers and students within the science department and the whole Upper School. 

At Collegiate, Giddings imagines “the ability to be able to dream and see my dreams realized.” She cannot wait until the end of the pandemic, when she can “take her students to places that they would not have gone otherwise and to open their eyes to new ideas” through field trips to places like the Virginia state laboratories and VCU. She wants to “learn through my students [and] enjoys introducing concepts and seeing the excitement on the kids’ faces.” 

Photo credits: Collegiate School via Facebook.