I met Nan when I was assigned to co-teach with her.  When I walked into the classroom I  couldn't
Believe my ears.  Yes, my ears!  For you see , Ms. Chowdruy was from India and although she was speaking English it did not seem she was.  I'm thinking, how will we communicate; it felt like i was learning a new language.  But there was one thing about Nandita, her given name which my tongue could not wrap around and I could not emit until I had to because I wanted to honor her.  She had become so dear, so special to me.  Why?   Well as I started to say before the one compelling aspect of Nandita was her love for science and enthusiasm in sharing hew knowledge.  So it was this enthusiastic love of Science she emitted that made me thirst to know more.  Nan and I enjoyed team teaching classes and searching out ways of making science an everyday part of our students lives. We spent many PD hours and discussing learning.  I taught with Nandita till she died a few years ago