Letter to my biology teacher

Dear Mrs Evans,

You inspired my interest in the wonders of life. I had long since exhausted my parents with my ‘why?’ questions, and here in science class there were answers and insights.  I cherished getting the New Scientist magazine at a special rate. Reading that and watching TV on a Thursday night – for ‘Tomorrow’s World’ rather than many classmates wanting the update of ‘Top of the Pops’ fed my curious mind.  Chemistry was cool , whilst physics never starched the itch, biology however fascinated me. I would read ahead in the textbooks. Had I been a student in the internet age I would have been devouring science content, as I do now.

However, I was ‘that child’, the one who came to you proclaiming that I wanted to opt out of the evolution classes because of my faith. I even gave you a book that suggested the fossil record merely reflected the drowning sequence of creatures during the flood of Noah’s day.   Looking back I am not sure where my anti evolutionist stance came from – it was not part of the general message of my Methodist Church I had attended since infancy. Perhaps it was the books I was reading, and my young in faith enthusiasm.  It reflected my limited understanding of faith and of science. You responded with grace and I sat in the prep room during those classes. In reality I was reading up on evolution anyway should it come up in any exams!  I guess it was my way of ‘making a stance’ from my faith.

You continued as my biology teacher for years beyond that, through GCSEs and A level, and saw me depart for a degree course in Biochemistry with Microbiology.  And such is the nature of teaching, that you work with us closely and then set us loose into the wider world, without hearing back from where we end up.

I am not sure where or when I embraced the scientific evidence of evolution, or at least when I stopped fighting it.   I suspect it was when I was still in your classes, but I just didn’t recognise it at the time, like someone wandering in the borderlands. At Uni I embraced the wonder of life without trying to define how it came to be.

You may not be surprised that I ended up as a church minister, I hope you will be affirmed that I do so as someone who affirms the beautiful insights of scientific discovery.   That discovery was something that was rooted in what you taught.