The chemistry teacher who loves experiments

Looking back, it was perhaps inevitable that Jesper Svartz would become a teacher. His path to the profession began in childhood.

“I’ve always found school very easy, and I often helped classmates, especially with maths and the sciences. But I also enjoyed languages.”

Exams - a favourite

For many years now, he has taught mainly chemistry at Berzeliusskolan upper secondary school in Linköping. He earned his teaching degree at Linköping University, where he also completed a PhD in Medical Cell Biology. When he adds it up, he has spent a total of eleven years at the university and describes himself as almost “overeducated”. The simple reason is that he loves learning new things – and putting what he has learned to the test.

“When I was at university, sitting exams was one of my favourite things. I’ve never really found myself in that situation where I simply didn’t know enough,” he admits.

Jesper Svartz’s enthusiasm for chemistry is unmistakable as he and his students Alexander Stjärnström and Gustav Blomqvist demonstrate some chemistry experiments for us. Liquids change colour, flames leap up and bangs ring out, all to general cheers.

“You can tell that he’s just as passionate about the subject as the students are and it’s infectious,” says Alexander, who is studying on the Natural Science Programme’s specialist pathway.

 

Tips for teachers

The students on the specialist pathway are ambitious and often ask unexpected, thought-provoking questions. Some have even won the Swedish Chemical Society’s Chemistry Olympiad. In that respect, it is clearly an advantage for their teacher to be “overeducated”. Jesper Svartz himself is reluctant to analyse his own strengths too much.

“One thing is that I’m very organised. My lessons, for example, are 60 minutes long, never 80 minutes like some teachers’. Eighty minutes just isn’t efficient. I wouldn’t even manage to sit through that myself!”

Asked what advice he would give to someone who wants to become a better teacher, he pauses for a moment. Then he says that the most important thing, at least in chemistry and biology, is to carry out demonstrations for students, to show them things and relate them to the real world.

“The second thing is to write on the board. Everything has become incredibly digitalised. Thirdly, students should absolutely not sit with their laptops open taking notes. So it’s about classic, traditional teaching with obvious elements such as students being actively involved, discussing things in pairs and interrupting with questions.”
 

Anna Nilsen

Sparking young people's interest

Science and mathematics are Jesper Svartz’s passion. He wants to understand how things work. It is also a mindset that he wants to pass on to his students: that it is possible to get to the bottom of problems and understand how everything fits together.

But not everyone shares his enthusiasm for science and mathematics. He recalls visiting his children’s preschool to demonstrate experiments when they were young.

“All children love that sort of thing. Somewhere between the middle years of primary school and lower secondary school, they start to lose interest a little.”

He has no ready answer as to how that problem can be solved. There is a growing shortage of qualified science teachers in lower secondary school and perhaps also a lack of equipment and facilities needed to carry out experiments and demonstrations, he says.

Anna Nilsen

“We can see that the kind of things we did ourselves in lower secondary school are no longer being done. The problem is that you probably lose some students as a result. Because those are the things that make it fun and exciting.”

Many people have an opinion about the Swedish school system. Jesper Svartz is no exception. He points out that many upper secondary schools maintain a very high standard. The unfortunate thing, he says, is that schools have become highly segregated, and that the students who are most in need of the best teachers often end up at lower-quality schools.

The downsides

If he had complete freedom to decide, he would gladly do away with grades. At the same time, he sees no good alternative. He does not have any plans to stop teaching, even though he might well earn more working in a laboratory at a medical company. Teaching may not be a calling, but it is, at the very least, an important job. It is not, however, a profession for just anyone.

“Absolutely not. You have to be interested in the subjects. Then there has to be order in the classroom. A teacher needs to have some leadership qualities, otherwise it doesn’t matter how good they are at their subjects.”

Anna Nilsen