Chemistry teacher Christopher Nilsen was announced as Pascack Valley Teacher of the Year for the 2023-2024 school year on Monday, Dec. 4.
“I was happy, excited, and appreciative that there are students out there that nominated me,” Nilsen said. “There are 100 people in this building who could very well deserve this award…I think that I was just the lucky one.”
Nilsen found out that he won Teacher of the Year during his first-period AP Chemistry class with a visit from Principal John Puccio, Assistant Principal Alison Petaccia, 2022-2023 Teacher of the Year Michael Sherman, and Director of Curriculum Dr. Barry Bachenheimer, among others.
“I turned bright red because I am very much an introvert,” Nilsen said. “I don’t like having attention drawn to me.”
This year marks Nilsen’s 16th year at Valley, the “first and only school” he has worked at.
Nilsen explains that his favorite part of teaching is the wide range of interactions with students.
“It doesn’t just have to be the discussions and the ‘aha moments’ in the classroom, but it’s also the discussions that I have in the hallway with people and the discussions that I have as they’re working in the lab together,” Nilsen said. “It doesn’t just have to be the science relationships, but relationships in general.”
He enjoys learning from his students and getting to know their different personalities.
“One of the great things about teaching is all the different students that you have, and all the backgrounds that they have, and all the different experiences that they have, and learning about those experiences,” Nilsen said.
Nilsen teaches Honors Chemistry and AP Chemistry classes. When asked which course is his favorite, Nilsen found it hard to say and compared it to a parent picking a favorite child. However, he finds Honors Chemistry to be something special.
“Honors Chemistry is a way to give an introduction to a lot of students to a harder mathematical science,” Nilsen said. “And there are a number of people out there who think that it also works out to be a good stepping stone to some other science classes, if that’s something that you’d like.”
According to Nilsen, the sophomores’ youth and inexperience with the subject lead to exciting learning moments.
“What I like to see for sophomores, is the piecing together of things,” Nilsen said. “I like watching the light bulbs go off over their heads.”
Oftentimes, Nilsen’s Honors Chemistry students return to take AP Chemistry during their junior or senior year. Nilsen enjoys seeing his students again and thinks it eases both academic and social aspects. Academically, Nilsen noted that these returning students have a “basic foundation, and they wind up being super prepared for college.”
“I like that he understands the subject on a deeper level so he can teach it really well,” PV Senior and two-year Nilsen student Tolu Bosede said.
Socially, Nilsen can skip getting to know the students and pick up where they left off.
“Having those foundation relationships already also helps us to facilitate the class,” Nilsen said.
PV senior and current AP Chemistry student Jillian Suarez expressed a high level of admiration and comfortability for Nilsen after having him for Honors Chemistry and various extracurricular clubs.
“I feel like I can come to him for chem problems, but also outside of school problems,” Suarez said. “He is just a genuinely good person and I look up to him not just as a teacher.”
When Nilsen was in high school, he greatly enjoyed chemistry and expressed those positive experiences to be “essentially the reason why I became a teacher.” He traces his desire to teach all the way back to 10th grade because of his chemistry teacher, Mr. Bernardo, and the fun he found in his labs.
“Mr. Bernardo probably had the biggest impact [on me],” Nilsen said. “His combination of personality, knowledge, and humor made me really like the class.”
However, Nilsen did not jump into teaching right away. He decided to put a hold on pursuing education and study engineering in college.
Nilsen attended Columbia University for both undergraduate and graduate school. His major was chemical engineering and chemistry.
After college, Nilsen worked at pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb “working on cancer drugs.” From there, he moved to Johnson and Johnson where he continued to work on various types of drugs and also worked on making Splenda function for baking purposes.
“I enjoyed that [industry work] for many, many years, but eventually, I wanted to follow what I was more passionate about, which was teaching,” Nilsen said. “I have seen teachers who did entire careers in their fields and then in their 50s and 60s, go and become teachers, but the thing is, if it’s something that you really enjoy, you really want to see whether you like it younger than that, so you have more years doing it.”
When interviewing to become a teacher, Nilsen recalls Pascack Valley standing out.
“I was able to see the relationships that teachers had with other teachers, the way that they interacted with one another, the way that they helped one another out, the way that they collaborated,” Nilsen said. “Once getting here, I love the atmosphere of the school and the way that students and faculty rally around certain causes. I think that it’s the people that make the school.”
Outside the classroom, Nilsen advises PV’s Chemistry Olympics and Academic Decathlon clubs.
“When I got here, I felt like I could make a difference with it [Chemistry Olympics] because of my combination of teaching and industry experience,” Nilsen said.
He got involved in Academic Decathlon to work with his friend and colleague, PV Biology teacher Al Cann. In this setting, Nilsen enjoys seeing students “wanting to be a little bit more well-rounded.” He also recognizes how the involved interviews, speeches, and essays build “great skills that students can use not just in school, but [also] outside school.”
From the labs to PV, Nilsen is extremely content with his choices.
“I wouldn’t look back,” Nilsen said. “I love every day.”
