Ithaca College faculty and staff forge a real Partnership in Teaching with area elementary, middle, and high schools.

By Tom M. Paolangeli '78

Blow! Blow! Blow!" shouts Frank Micale. The clinical assistant professor of exercise and sport sciences has to shout, because 11th-grader Jeff Erickson is currently under water, submerged in a 500-gallon stainless steel tank. Erickson is straining to expel every last bit of air from his lungs. Bubbles cease trickling to the surface, and Micale gestures broadly and shouts, "Relax!" Erickson, clutching a PVC framework, hangs motionless. The scene is the Robert R. Colbert Sr. Wellness Clinic at Ithaca College, and Micale, its director, is giving a demonstration to students from Janice Frossard’s South Seneca High Human Anatomy and Physiology class. Erickson is helping him show how to use hydrostatic weighing --- a very accurate way of measuring body fat percentage. Earlier, Erickson had consented to an exercise tolerance test in which he was wired and put through paces on a treadmill. A machine measured his aerobic capacity, or cardiovascular fitness. In typical teenage understatement, Erickson says it was "weird, but cool."

The visit of Frossard’s class to the clinic came thanks to Ithaca College’s Partnership in Teaching program. Founded nine years ago, the program is run by the Center for Teacher Education with the help of an endowment from the Tompkins Trust Company. It has grown each year since its inception and now offers more than 60 different presentations to students in elementary, middle, and high schools throughout Ithaca and nearby towns.

"It’s part of the mission of the center to reach out to the local schools and match the resources we have here at Ithaca College with their needs," explains Pat Tempesta, interim director of the center. "I never cease to be amazed by the generosity of the IC faculty and staff who volunteer to do these programs."

Tempesta stresses that this is a true "partnership," with everyone benefiting from the interaction of presenters with teachers and students at the different grade levels. "It gets people out of their own little boxes and into someone else’s world. Education is seen as less compartmentalized; artificial lines tend to disappear."

Fred Estabrook (left), IC’s manager of instructional graphics, offers presentations in computer animation, Photo Shop, and PowerPoint charts and graphs. He, too, stresses the partnership aspect of the program. After consulting with his host teacher about goals, he’ll tailor each presentation to suit the age and skill level of the class. Estabrook is often surprised by how quickly kids can pick up new skills. "I once gave Boynton Middle School students some software that did simple 3-D animations," he says. "They played around with the software freely for about 10 or 15 minutes, and the next thing I knew they were doing these really impressive little animations."

Photo by George Sapio