After 50 years of teaching science, Yorkville educator says the secret is remaining inspired

For five decades, Gary Johnson’s passion for science has ignited a catalyst of wonder within generations of students in his classroom.

After 50 years in teaching at Parkview Christian Academy in Yorkville, and the Aurora Christian Schools, Johnson said he’s come to understand the power of chemical reactions. Once you inspire one developing mind, there’s a transference of imagination and each student goes on to touch the lives of countless others.

“I try to inspire with hands-on demonstrations, watching them learn and seeing their reactions is the essence of teaching,” Johnson said. “When you’re actually conducing experiments and solving problems with your hands, you’re developing critical thinking skills. Critical thinking helps you analyze not just science problems, but any fields in life in which you’re trying to solve an issue.”

Johnson currently teaches biology, chemistry and physics to 9-12 graders at Parkview Christian Academy, where he is in his eleventh year.

With the modern-world’s reliance on using computers to find easy answers, Johnson said it has become all the more crucial to make the fundamentals of science come alive for students. He said they need to witness the physical and chemical reactions happen before their eyes.

“Students have become so used to looking for answers on screens rather than conducting experiments and discovering research on their own,” Johnson said. “You can look up how electricity works. But when I do classroom demonstrations with a Tesla coil, producing 90,000 volts that you can grab a hold of and feel it pass through you, you better understand the wonder of how electricity actually works.”

Johnson said he never gets tired of seeing the awe on a student’s face when chemical reactions in test tubes produce the same explosions their calculations had predicted. Or when a student gets excited because a matchbox car accelerated down a track at precisely the same rate and time that their calculations predicted because of the fundamental forces of gravity.

Like reactions in a test tube, Johnson likes to see which engaging experiments help inspire the most students.

“To be able to catch a hold of a concept, and to truly understand it, it really helps them pursue greater achievements in their next steps in life,” Johnson said. “Every once in a while, a student from the past will reach out to me, joking that I haven’t changed. I really love that. It’s very fulfilling.”

Johnson received a lot more gratitude and appreciation as Parkview Christian Academy hosted a celebration of his 50 years of teaching earlier this year.

Not every teacher has the longevity to make it half a century, but for Johnson, his passion for the field of science is an unyielding force of nature.