But if you don’t mind working with the students, we’d like you to keep doin’ that. And someday I’d like you to meet with someone from the St. Louis Board of Education and help develop a more formal program.” So that was my step. To me, a big step in my career because I was now a reptile keeper and education coordinator. So I made an appointment with the head of the school district curriculum and I went to see how we could enhance the zoo to get more teachers to bring their class for part of their training. Because up ’til now to the visit the zoo is like a day off. They went screaming and running. They didn’t learn very much and we thought maybe work with a worksheet so the students would have some kind of a formal program. So from that, we met with the science supervisor for the Board of Education and he suggested we do classes for gifted students, seventh and eighth gifted students.
