Live from Bryn Mawr....it's The Jack Marine Variety Hour!!

I am Jack Marine. My legal given name is Jacob, but everone calls me Jack. No one in my family was a Marine, but my father was one of the few Marines in the Army!

I graduated college in 1978 and worked in the Apparel Industry for nearly twenty years.  In 1996, I went back to school at Cabrini College to study elementary education. After I earned my PA K-6 certification, I started teaching in The Philadelphia School District. I've been teaching for eleven years, teaching elementary science at two different charter schools for the past seven (years). I am currently seeking a new position for this fall.

I think some charter schools are very successful and work great. But I haven't worked for any of these schools yet, in my brief career in education.

I enjoy teaching through inquiry based lessons the most. I have little experience teaching solely through textbook curriculums. I think students need to discover their world and the world outside of their comfort zone through discovery learning. It's important to me that children understand their place on the planet and that not everything is a renewable resource.

I think the standards that have been set in science are too high. But I also feel that we need children in America need to understand what America is all about, where we are going as a country, and what may happen in the environment.

I am married for 24 years. I have an 18 year old son and a 16 year old daughter. My hobbies are gardening, junk collecting, selling at yard sales and flea markets, and playing with animals. At home I have a large organic garden, several compost piles, pet mice and pet hissing cockroaches, a box turtle, a worm farm, and two chickens.

Education is like an earthworm, it takes a lot of dirt (knowledge) to produce good castings (poop).