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Written by: Kasey Ottewill
Photo by: Kasey Ottewill
Contributor: Serena Chaudhary
Mr. Leckie holding his favourite book, Game of Thrones, with his Minnie Mouse mug.
For all of the readers of the TABloid who enjoy the sciences, this month's articles will suit you very well! Members of the TABloid interviewed Blakelock’s new Department Head of Science as well as the resident Biology teacher, Mr. Leckie.
Growing up, Mr. Leckie excelled in the sciences throughout his high school years, though he did not know what he wanted to do post-secondary. He chose to go into Kinesiology at Western University in London for his undergraduate degree and eventually got his Masters degree in Exercise Physiology also at Western University, and lastly acquired his teaching degree at… you guessed it, Western University!
He loved being a university student, but eventually decided he did not want to pursue a PhD and decided to go into teaching because he felt it was “in his blood” as his mother was a teacher throughout her career.
Mr. Leckie started off teaching at Georgetown District High School for 4 years, and then Craig Kielburger High School for 3 years, and this is his first year teaching at TAB.
Like a lot of teachers, Mr. Leckie began indirectly teaching others while in high school. He was a lifeguard in the summers as well as a coach at both the club and high school level. Immediately after getting his teaching degree, he traveled through Sweden for a year and sees it as one of the best experiences of his life. Though his first teachable course is Physical Education, he enjoys teaching Biology and feels that Kinesiology is the perfect combination of those things.
At Craig Kielburger High School in Milton, Mr. Leckie participated in the LEAP program where they assist kids who struggle with learning in Grade 7, and put them into early high school courses where they are taught specific skills such as literacy and math to set them up for success in high school. He felt this was incredibly important and strives to help kids understand that they can come to him with “whatever they need, and [he] can just provide it for them.”
Relating to Genetics, a unit he teaches in his Grade 11 Biology course, he enjoys the book Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin, which dives into the common traits that all living things share, even when they seem unrelated. However, one of his favorite books of all time is Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.
He feels that the book is “full of gray characters.” He feels that in comic books there are clearly “good guys and bad guys, and the good guys are very good and the bad guys are very bad,” and says that it is an “immature way to look at things, while Game of Thrones is complicated and realistic,” (though he is irritated that there has not been an ending to the series yet).
One of his favourite units to teach is the Climate Change unit in early high school science, as he feels it’s very topical to teach and that “the Electron Transport Chain won’t matter if sea levels keep rising.”
“As a science teacher, Climate Change [and] Scientific Literacy is all that matters."
Thank you Mr. Leckie for your wisdom, and we hope that George R.R. Martin comes out with another Game of Thrones!
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