Photo by Daniel Weiner
Timothy Omondi joins the science department
Chemistry teacher Timothy Omondi brings science and teaching experience from Kenya to Durham.
While Omondi is new to Riverside, he’s been an educator for a long time.
“I have been teaching for 13 years,” he said. “In Kenya I was teaching mathematics and physics, so I decided to come over on a cultural exchange program to experience the culture of United States classrooms and to bring my culture from Kenya.”
Omondi had experiences as a student himself that inspired him to become a science teacher.
“When I think back to high school, I loved science,” he said. “I was fascinated by how science can be used to explain the world around us.”
Omondi also has other passions.
“I wanted to go into engineering but I didn’t have a chance to go to engineering school,” he said.
Omondi went to the University of Nairobi and majored in physics and minored in mathematics.
“My grandfather’s a teacher, my mother’s a teacher, I am a teacher, so I think it’s running in my bloodline somehow,” he said.
Omondi hopes to make the teaching hands-on and make it so that his students see the effects of science in person.
“I want them to be able to understand the concepts in the simplest way possible,” he said, “to be able to explain these concepts to be able to go out there and apply these concepts and connect what we learn in class to what happens out of the classroom.”
The biggest difference he notices between teaching here is that teaching here is much more physical and based on observation.
“So I could say that the difference I see here is strong compared to what we did in Kenya, so instruction is driven by data,” said Omondi.
