When Michael Talbot was applying for the Alworth Memorial Scholarship four years ago, he listed among his admirable qualities a genuine desire to learn. He told his teachers who were writing his recommendations that he generally read non-fiction so that he would be constantly learning.

     Talbot, a student at the University of Minnesota, was involved in a wide variety of activities in high school and excelled in a number of academic disciplines. Though he is now on track to receive his bachelor’s degree in Bioproducts and Biosystems engineering, he has continued to live a well-rounded life.

     Talbot is passionate about developing a better the educational system. He hopes that through his range of interests he will be able to help others focus theirs.

     Talbot’s interest in educational reform, like his scientific curiosity, started early.

     “I started realizing that probably after elementary school when there were so many things that were interesting to me but we didn’t talk about it,” he said. “We were memorizing and spelling and learning vocabulary.”

     The divide between memorization and allowing students to follow their interests is central to Talbot’s educational philosophy.

     “Teaching is really about giving you the skills to learn other things later,” he argues. “You should come out of college with the ability to figure out problems on their own.”

     This is something that he practices on his own. As a tutor he often tells students that he might not be able to help them, that he can explain concepts but the understanding and the development of the particular skill is something that they must develop on their own.

     “Education should not have to goal of teaching you everything,” he suggested, “because it can’t.”

     Although Talbot believes this, it has not stopped him from exploring interests in a number of fields. His thirst for knowledge is insatiable. He will tell you repeatedly that he is interested in everything. His wide range of interests is what ultimately brought him to teaching.

     “I am passionate about education because I think that if I can learn how to educate people I can help people with their specific interests,” he said. “I have so many interests that I can’t settle down. I hope to help people focus their efforts so they can make a difference in a number of fields.”

     Neither of Talbot’s parents went to college and there were no other close family members with significant higher education experiences. So he looked up to his teachers.

     “They are what I wanted to be,” he said.

     Talbot’s seventh-grade science teacher, Mr. Leustek, was particularly influential and clearly had an impact on Talbot’s vision of education.

“Mr. Leustek taught us all sorts of things but never expected us to memorize anything,” Talbot recalled. “He just pushed us to learn as many things as we possibly could. He was eclectic. His style was different than everyone else. He had the most genuine desire to teach of any I have met.”

Though his goals for the future are great, Talbot is satisfying his variety of interests, for the moment, as a student of Agricultural Engineering (biosystems and bioproducts engineering). This evolving field includes both classical ecology and civil engineering. It is a program that tries to meld a number of different engineering programs and uses multiple disciplines to solve complex engineering problems.

     Agricultural engineers can end up as consultants, government employees, environmentalists, civil engineers, or even teachers. They work on biofuels, food production, and environmental issues. Talbot has focused on environmental issues.

     During the summer of 2007 he worked in southern Minnesota surveying ravines as apart of the Clean Water Legacy Act. The research of his group 2was concerned with measuring levels of nitrate pollution produced through farm irrigation runoff. Currently he is working on a project on roadway subsurface flow using GIS computer mapping.

     After he graduates from college, Talbot is considering the Teach for America program. It will allow him to work for two years in a struggling school and put some of his ideas into practice.

     Though Talbot will not immediately put into practice all of the things he learned in college about biosystems engineering, he believes it will benefit him in the classroom. He believes his college education has given him insight on the many ways that knowledge can be used and will help him when his future students ask the age-old question: “When will I ever use this in life?”

     With such broad interest in knowledge, Talbot is sure to have few answers. He has loved learning and tried to constantly expand his mind. As a teacher he will strive to do the same, and instill students with the same passion in an infinite number of fields.