The musical ghosts of Christmas past

On the rare occasions when someone asks me how I got into writing songs about science, I tell them about 9th grade Honors Biology in the fall of 1987 at Rutland High School in Rutland, Vermont, and, in particular, about the Christmas Song Contest organized by our biology teachers, Mr. (Steve) Welch and Mrs. (Joanne) Golubjatnikov (“Mrs. G”).

The basis of the contest was an extra-credit assignment of writing a science-themed parody of a Christmas song. As I recall, the two classes then gathered for a rare joint session on the last day before the holiday break to sing the songs together and vote for awards.

When I tell this story, I generally focus on the fact that, for this assignment, I wrote my first science song, Viruses Are Comin’ to Town, which won the grand prize in the contest and launched me (slowly) toward educational-science-song stardom (such as it is).

I’m happy to tell the story because it still resonates for me. I was really proud of that song, and it was very cool to have it recognized and enjoyed by my peers. It was a great “I feel seen” moment similar to one I would experience a few years later, courtesy of my college running coach.

But today — on December 13, 2024 — I’m thinking about the broader context beyond my personal tale of “nerdy kid triumphs in nerdy contest.” What might have led our teachers to stage this contest? How might other students have experienced it?

I remember Joey O’Neill, a future engineer with no musical inclination, delivering an absolutely unsingable version of “Jingle Bells.” I’m pretty sure he just wanted the extra credit. He won the award for Worst Song.

Foster Palmer had better luck adapting “Jingle Bells” to become “Chloroplasts, chloroplasts/ Mostly in plants…” I can’t remember his third line, but he rhymed “plants” with “Like something that slants.” I think he was referring to thylakoid membranes.

Alison Whitehair offered “Mrs. G Got Killed in a Nuclear Meltdown,” to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It was edgy but clever: “Mrs. G got killed in a nuclear meltdown/ Traveling to Chernobyl overseas/ You can say there’s no such thing as meltdowns/ But as for Mrs. G she’d disagree.”

Mrs. G and Mr. Welch joined in the songwriting too. Using “We Three Kings” as a template, Mrs. G wrote: “We are teachers, he and I/ Working here at Rutland High/ Salary low, rewards are few,/ But still we re-main true… to…”

If there was any true bitterness behind those words, Mrs. G hid it well behind a sturdy star-of-wonder refrain: “Rutland High! Red and White!” I can’t remember the rest, but it was stirring.

And then there was Laura Wilkinson, who, using the tune of “O Christmas Tree,” wrote: “O Mendel, O Mendel/ I am so grateful to you/ ‘Cause from your work I now realize/ The reason that my eyes are blue.”

As Laura’s classmate, I was suitably impressed with these words, which referred to real biology while fitting the original song’s cadence pretty well. Today, as a 51-year-old biology professor, I am quite literally weeping at this memory.

Most of us go into science teaching at least partly because we love science and want to help others understand science better. If we do our job well, our students learn to apply science facts and science skills to their own lives — to understand and solve problems, and to gain a greater appreciation of themselves and the world around them.

Of course, there’s an infinite number of ways by which people can take the information from a science course and make it personally relevant. But my all-time favorite articulation of that might be the chorus above, penned with passion and purpose by 14-year-old Laura Wilkinson.

Cheers to Mr. Welch and Mrs. G for making such moments possible.