Valley’s Spurrell will retire after 21 years bringing science to life

Kathy Spurrell, inside her lab-style classroom at Hermosa Valley, retires this week after 21 years in the district. Photo

Last Friday afternoon, students in Kathy Spurrell’s seventh-grade science class were watching a brief segment of a video about the human body and sloughed off their post-lunch grogginess when they saw a man missing the top of his head. A brain surgery patient was being kept awake during a surgery to remove a small tumor so that surgeons could periodically ask him basic questions, in order to make sure that they weren’t harming the part of his brain that helps with language. The patient could be kept awake, students learned, because the brain lacks pain receptors.

When the video concluded, a student raised his hand with a question. “Why would that be? From a biological perspective, it would seem like the system that would most need pain receptors?” the student asked. Other students disagreed, and Spurrell let the debate continue for a while. Then, sensing that the students were drifting, she managed to bring them back without quite dulling their excitement. She steered the discussion toward healthy foods for the brain, diseases that attack it, and even the students’ cycling habits.

“This is where I get a bit sad because I see some of you riding your bikes to school without a helmet,” Spurrell said.

The range of topics was, well, head-spinning, but it was all in a period’s work for Spurrell, who will be retiring from teaching after 21 years in the district this Thursday. Along with her dedication inside the classroom, Spurrell leads Hermosa’s team in the Science Olympiad and heads up the annual trip to the Catalina Island Marine Institute. She leaves behind a legacy of thousands of students to whom she imparted some of her fascination with the natural world and a sense that science is more approachable than it might seem.

“Not everybody is going to be a scientist. But I think everybody needs to be science-literate,” she said.

That attitude came across to Claire Gunning, a Valley alumnus who just graduated from Mira Costa. Gunning, who will be heading to Purdue University in the fall, said she does not intend to major in the sciences. But Spurrell was part of the reason that Gunning decided to give Advanced Placement sciences classes a try in high school.

“Her passion was something that always kept me interested,” Gunning said.

Spurrell grew up in Orange County, excelling in math and science from an early age. But she was a shy student and hesitant to raise her hand. It took, of all things, a Latin teacher to bring her out of her shell. She also credits “life experience” with giving her the strength to stand in front of a room full of students. Before teaching, she worked as a waitress and also briefly worked in a mental institution, an experience that also made it into last week’s discussion of the brain.

Spurrell’s stint in Hermosa is actually her second go-round with teaching. After getting a degree in biology and then her teaching credential, she taught for five years in Yorba Linda, then took time off to raise her children. She came to Hermosa in 1997. After two initial years teaching younger students, she has taught seventh grade ever since.

The social awkwardness of seventh grade, she said, does not put her off, and she can’t imagine herself teaching any other age. She feels that it’s the time when students begin to discover which subjects they are passionate about. She recalled meeting a professor that her daughter had in college, and telling him “I’m the one who plants the seed for your future students.”

Spurrell has been around long enough to see trends in teaching come and go. She noted, for example, the coming Next Generation Science Standards, which will reshape science education in the state. Currently, students at Hermosa Valley get earth science in sixth grade, life science in seventh, and physical science in eighth grade. In the not-too-distant future, they will get a blend of all three in each grade.

“Things that were old are new again. It’s always changing. It can be hard getting us old dogs to learn new tricks,” she joked.

Spurrell teaches out of a lab-style classroom. Students share obsidian-colored rectangular tables and sit on high stools. A tennis ball is stuck on the end of each leg of the stool, to minimize the screeching noise of dragging against the linoleum. Backpacks are left against the walls, tucked under workstations. Sitting on a shelf near the room’s northeast corner is a collection of trophies that commemorate the successes of teams that Spurrell has led in the Science Olympiad.

The Olympiad is an annual competition that pits students from all over the country in 23 different events, testing the whole gamut of science knowledge. Every year, Spurrell holds tryouts, organizes practices, and takes a team of sixth, seventh and eighth graders to the competition’s Los Angeles regional. In previous years, Spurrell’s team has placed as high as second.

Later Friday afternoon, Spurrell pulled out one of the binders that she keeps from previous teams. She saw that it was from the 2007 team — “These kids have graduated from college by now,” she mused — and reflected back on how she was swept up with the project, which she began leading at the suggestion of a parent.

“I did it not knowing what I was getting myself into, that it would become my total passion,” she said.

Spurrell uses the word “passion” frequently, and her dedication to the Olympiad does not prevent her from orchestrating another memorable experience for students: the annual trip to Catalina. Students visit the marine institute for a week of snorkeling, kayaking, and evening astronomy hikes. For Spurrell’s admirers, the trip embodies her tactic  “sneaking” in science by instilling excitement about the natural world.

“Catalina is an experience that every student should have,” said Hermosa Valley Principal Kim Taylor. “And Kathy’s commitment to helping kids learn science in different environments is a critical part of why our students have had so much success.”

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