A couple of our group members traveled to Waverly one afternoon to meet with Dr. Bechtel to ask him questions about the tortoises, his teaching style, and what we can learn from the tortoises. He was happy to answer all of the questions we had, and afterward, he let us meet the tortoises, take pictures of them, and even showed us around the building. Here are some of the interview questions we asked him.
What is your teaching philosophy?
"So it's Andragogy. So everybody uses the word pedagogy. I hate it. I despise it. It's the worst word ever. So pedagogy simply means that I can teach you whatever...Andragogy means I can find out what you're interested in and help you learn something."
Would you say hands-on learning is more effective than the traditional approach?
"I'll be 100% honest, I never wanted to be a teacher. And my reasoning is, I think it's my teachers, they're all just white men you know what I mean? And it was, like, you're reading off a PowerPoint. I can read off of a PowerPoint too. I don't need you to read a PowerPoint. Like, show me what I can do with it. Show me something cool, or let me at least check it out."
What is the best thing about the Tortoises?
"Obviously, tortoises in Iowa are unexpected. I like the unusual. One request before you leave, both of you, to go and just pick one up. They’re a lot of weight. Like, you won't believe how heavy they are. They are like little boulders. So that's one thing. Another one I really like is just how nice they are. So what freaks people out is you saw the kids coming over here, if you start itching their neck, they will put their whole neck out forever. Yes. And one of them when he started his butt wagged. Right. So they're awesome. They have a great personality. They're not mean."
What is there to learn about Tortoises?
"So one is ecologically speaking, because they’re RNK species and so there are some species that produce a ton of babies, nothing lives, like rats or mice. And then some species have very few babies and a large amount of time between like elephants. So what's interesting is that these are more like mice than they are like elephants by reproduction, because they will lay three times a year and produce up to 60 eggs each time. So you saw the babies in the room? Yeah. Like, if I were to raise every baby, we'd be, you know, overrun in Iowa with tortoises. Yeah, but they're very bite-sized for everything else. We have other tortoises, so I got some tortoises in there that are from Ukraine, Russia."
Where are your Tortoises from?
"They're from the Sahara Desert. So what you see in the corners, those are sandpits. I made them. Those are 10 feet deep. We dug straight down, we put boards all around it, and put sand in like that. So like when it gets hot, they dig. So you'll see sand flying everywhere because they go down and you don't want to dig it out in the middle of the day. They'll dig because it gets cooler down there. So they go down and they keep themselves cool. And if they ever do fall in they dig their way back out."