Mrs. Bolos: Inspirational Teacher and a Misson to Motivate Us

When I received my class schedule for sophomore year, I happened to glance that I was going to have Mrs. Bolos for my chemistry teacher. I didn’t know who she was or even how she would shape my future. She is Ms. Frizzle but without the frizzy hair; with red hair and all, she was our classroom leader with such an enthusiasm for the subject she taught. When I walked into chemistry class the first day of school, I didn’t know that this class would change my future, thus creating not one career, but two careers that I followed.

On the first day, Mrs. Bolos divvied out boxes to us. They were unusual things to be put together in a box and handed to a chemistry class; they were items that you’d find around a house, souvenirs from vacation, or a letter. They were Mrs. Bolos’s personal collection of items which we were to study and then get a gist of whom Mrs. Bolos was. These items helped us understand who Mrs. Bolos was, what Mrs. Bolos loved about teaching chemistry and in everyday life. Of all the classes that I’ve taken from Kindergarten through my senior year of college, there’s only one thing that I specifically remember happening on day 1 of those classes: Bolos’s chemistry class.

It was a blast playing detectives as we tried to gather clues about Mrs. Bolos. After we were all done looking at her items, she spent some time telling us about those items. She helped us understand, or more accurately understand, who she was. She wanted her students to get to know her as well as she would get to know us. Her job as a teacher was not to be our peer or our best bud, but she understood how teaching adolescents meant she had to open the doors of communication between us and her. By doing so, her students would appreciate what she said and what she taught us; by darn, she was right!

From a technical standpoint, Mrs. Bolos required each student to have composition notebooks, which would become our laboratory notebooks. We would write our class objectives each day, tape in certain notes or classroom instructions (now that stuff is probably just on your iPad, Chromobook or OneNote put there by a teacher with a click on the mouse), and to record data and observations from laboratory experiments. Her goal in doing this was two-fold: to have everything we needed for class in our handy dandy little notebook and to help us develop certain organizational skills which we would take forward with us the rest of our lives (albeit I’m still working on achieving the second part of this goal.)

Come that May, we had a multifaceted, creative, but technical project that pushed me into chemical engineering as my first career: our class metamorphosed into a soap manufacturing company. There were multiple jobs which we applied for such as vice president, accountants, researchers, chemical engineers, and marketing. We wrote resumes, we were given a budget, and we created a company name. We engineered soap, designed it for scent, softness, and saponification. Our chemistry class vs. the other classes, like Dove vs. Dial. We advertised to the school, pulled our customers in, and made them believe our soap was the greatest in the universe.

Her idea wasn’t just something fun to fill in her lesson plans. She wanted us to develop a story: we, teenagers on a mission, created a company we called “Startopia” and using chemistry to develop soap. She wanted us each to have a story to share with our parents, to make the Freshman uber excited about chemistry, and, if we so wanted, to showcase in our college application essays. She was a Mark Rober 20 years before Mark Rober became a YouTube sensation.

Mrs. Bolos armed with an understanding of how basic soap is made using the same ingredients that have been used centuries. Making soap isn’t any more ambitious than making some of the more challenging baked goods in your kitchen; it’s just combination of animal fat or vegetable oil, 100 percent pure lye which is sodium hydroxide, distilled water. Once our class had the base recipe down, the researchers and engineers added colors and scents to customize it. Our engineers developed triangular molds in which we would pour our liquid soap and let it harden into a bar. Marketing created packaging for our bars. Before Facebook, Instagram, and snapchat our marketing tools were mainly just a posterboard and markers, but alas we had some very creative artists, creating some sci-fi images and galaxy-type designs that were eager to attract someone’s gaze.

Some of my marketing classmates created jingles and posterboard ads hanging in the science wing. The researchers visited our local pharmacy and purchased fragrances that would be used to scent our bars of soap. Our accountants kept a careful eye on our invoices and made sure that we didn’t overspend the allotted amount given to us by the “President” (aka Mrs. Bolos).

In our excitement to do something unique, we had the vision of creating two different sized bars with one being a travel-size bar for someone to take on their extraterrestrial journey. Well, really, just on vacation, but we went with the sci-fi theme of traveling to Mars or a close-by solar system. Our 2 different sized triangular molds came back to alienate us. The syllabus stated that the size and weight of each of our produced bars of soap would be measured. The classes with a minimal size and weight difference would get a better grade that those with a greater size difference. Well, our class managed to at least pull off a 1 on the syllabus, but unfortunately, we lost a fair amount of points. A whole class of very studious students, rearing not to make any mistake in that chemistry class, managed to miss the fact that all the bars had to be the exact same size. Guess it just goes to show the reading your syllabus and following it to the T is an important part of classroom success!

Mrs. Bolos was truly an inspiration. She took on the task of writing a letter of recommendation for college for me. I applied to some of the top universities for chemical engineering, mainly because of this soap making project. I regret to say that I don’t think I ever personally thanked her doing this for me. Four years later, my first job out of college, I worked for a major soap manufacturing company supervising the production, mixing, and packaging of up to a hundred soaps and detergents. Was that a coincidence?

Fifteen years later, she led me farther down a path to teach high school chemistry. In our first class of my education master’s program, we read The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. He affirms, “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.” Mrs. Bolos taught unconditionally with such positivity and personality, care and cultivation. We got a glimpse of her identity and integrity on day one, and we witnessed her utmost teaching integrity throughout the school year. I’ll say my thank you right here in case Mrs. Bolos ever reads this blog: Thank you for teaching me my first of many chemistry classes and for setting the foundation for my future, Mrs. Bolos.