Not many people go on national television to blow giant smoke rings and set corn flakes on fire, but few have Lee Marek’s knack for trashing David Letterman’s “Late Show” set.
“They say this guy makes learning fun,” Letterman sneered during a recent introduction. “All the way from Naper-year-ville, Illinois, it’s high school science teacher Lee Marek.”
Naperville North High School’s quasi-famous chemistry teacher performed wacky science experiments on the “Late Show with David Letterman” this summer for the 11th time. And he loves it that Letterman consistently mispronounces Naperville, because it so annoys Marek’s fellow Napervillians.
After all, this is a guy who keeps a glowing purple sign in the shape of a mole in his front window just to defy the city’s ordinance against neon signs.
“The ordinance says no neon, but this isn’t neon,” he said proudly. Instead, the gas in the glass tube is argon.
Marek, a Chicago native, has been teaching chemistry and physics at Naperville North since 1974, just four years after the school first opened. He has always used a lot of theatrics in his classes, but about 15 years into what is now a 27-year teaching career he turned his lively style of teaching into a marketable program called “Weird Science.”
“Weird Science” was conceived in the back seat of Marek’s Honda, he recalled, by himself and three colleagues.
“We realized that the 15-second commercial and MTV were making teaching more difficult,” he said. “So we thought we’d try this approach where we incorporate videos, audio, music and bizarre demonstrations into science lessons.”
What evolved from that conversation is a stage show that Marek and his colleagues have performed for more than 200,000 teachers and students to date.
The types of experiments that Marek and his colleagues perform depend on the audience. On Letterman’s show, for example, Marek’s primary goal is to make a mess.
He recalled that the first time he was on the show “I told them that I’d like to spend 20 seconds talking about some of the content, and they said, `What the hell do you think this is, PBS? You go out there and you trash the set, that’s why we brought you here.’ “
So, Marek did just that, which is precisely why they keep asking him back.
“Lee always comes prepared, and he knows exactly what we like,” said Diana Lewis, “Late Show” talent coordinator.
But teaching science isn’t all theatrics. Back in the classroom, Marek usually keeps show time to a minimum.
“All you need is about five minutes a day–something to hook the kids into what they’re doing,” he said. “If they think their teacher is going to burn something alive, they usually try to watch the experiment.”
After grabbing the students’ attention, Marek builds the rest of his lessons around questions that emerge from the demonstration. But his classes seldom stray into the realm of traditional lecture.
When asked whether he ever finds it a stretch to tie the scientific demonstration into the day’s lesson, Marek jumps up and begins dragging toys and props into a room of his home. The centerpiece of this parade is Vac Man, a puffy rubber doll stuffed with rice and air.
“I’ll show you a stretch,” Marek said as he began pumping the side of Vac Man’s head with a plastic air vacuum.
When he was done pumping, he began pulling and stretching Vac Man’s limbs into unlikely shapes.
“You see, the whole object is you’re teaching pressure,” he said. “But if you can teach it with Vac Man, then you’ve got it made.”
One might expect that such antics from the teacher would lead to chaos in the classroom, but Naperville North Principal Bruce Cameron claims the contrary about Marek.
“He’s such a good teacher and the students are so riveted on him that the business of classroom control is not even an issue,” Cameron said.
Marek has done plenty to make his school proud, winning a slew of national teaching awards. But Cameron swears that Marek’s celebrity does not faze students or other teachers.
“When he comes here, he’s–I don’t want to say just another teacher–but he’s just one of the many people here working their tails off,” Cameron said. “He’s not held in awe, but he is held in very high esteem.”
Marek is clearly the type of teacher that students remember. Dozens of past students have contacted him over the years to thank him or just to reminisce. Beyond the classroom, he works with students on outside projects, for science fairs or just for fun. One of his current students, Tamir Ardon, even designed a device Marek used on television.
“It’s a pop bottle launcher,” Marek said, “sort of a Scud missile-type deal.”
Surprisingly, Marek hasn’t been mixing chemicals and blowing things up since childhood. In fact, his career comes as a shock to his parents, Frank and Janet.
They said Marek was a quiet kid who was more interested in tennis and swimming than science experiments during his years at Prospect High School in Mt. Prospect.
“Some years ago, he was honored as a teacher, and it was the first time I saw my son Lee get up and make a speech,” Frank Marek said. “I thought, `My God, it’s like Jekyll and Hyde.’ “
Although Marek’s love affair with science may not have blossomed until sometime in college, he did recall some early hints his parents may have forgotten. He has never watched much television, but he remembered being particularly interested as a child with one TV scientist.
Back then, Marek never would have imagined that he might one day be toying with the idea of hosting his own science program.
“I like teaching,” he said. “The rest of this was just luck.”
