Our local NPR station has an amazing podcast each Friday that centers around teachers. The host, Peter Medlin, is also an award-winning reporter on education for the station. In August, freshly home from my annual visit to the University of Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools Partnership I sat down with Peter to talk for the show (in my closet, on zoom!). It went live this week!
I knew that this show was an opportunity to share with a wider audience all that is most valuable to me as an educator. Furthermore, in a time when the teaching profession is threatened and devalued (especially this election season) I felt a duty to demonstrate just how highly skilled professionals teachers can be.
If you’re like me and prefer text, below is a summary of the podcast. I’ll also link a transcript.
- We chatted about the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools Partnership, a program that currently involves 40 teachers of physics across the state. We are able to collaborate, share resources, and gain access to some of the highest quality, evidence based practices. This is imperative when you are an “only” at your school.
- This lead into a short discussion about the need for high school physics teachers, given the dearth.
- We discussed how physics isn’t about math, physics is about models! So much of the problem solving in physics requires expert level thinking from novices.
- Inclusive Teaching practices
- importance of teaching a full history of science and addressing misconceptions about who can do physics.
- examples of incorporating diverse perspectives and historical figures into her teaching(like the identity encounters)
- “Careers in Physics” lesson from STEPUP, which helps students see the broad range of careers available with a physics background
- The importance of community
- Community is the source of joy and passion in teaching! (Thank you Joe Cosette for your plenary this summer!
- National and local meetings and the Building Thinking Classrooms Physics book study
- We wrapped up talking about the work we, as teachers, love the most and the work that’s most important: kindling the spark in students, battling systemic challenges in the education system and lasting relationships.
I was really grateful to Peter for hosting me and really happy with the product!
Listen to the podcast on WNIJ, or one of your favorites below! Keep scrolling for the transcript.
A Rockford educator teaches us how to think like a physicist | Teachers’ Lounge Podcast
Peter Medlin 0:04
Peter. I’m Peter Medlin, and you are listening to teachers lounge, and if this is your first time hearing our show, I’ve got great news. It’s based on a really simple idea, that we’ve all had teachers in our lives who helped us become who we are today. And every educator we have on this podcast, whether teacher, coach or professor, is nominated by the folks who listen. We want you to be a part of the show. Tell us about the educators who’ve inspired you and the folks in your community who deserve a spotlight. You can email us with your nominations and your story ideas at teachers lounge@niu.edu and on our show today is Marianna Ruggerio. She’s a physics teacher at Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois, and we talked about her mission to teach students how to think like a physicist, and what that really means, and dispelling misconceptions people have about physics that might lead them to think it’s not a class for them.
Marianna Ruggerio 0:58
When you think about who is a physicist. People think of Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. You’re thinking about old white guys who are geniuses, and in their room, they’re like coming up with these things all alone. You know, which is not how science is done.
Peter 1:14
Marianna says she wants to infect her students with passion. She’s so thoughtful and enthusiastic about her work, that it’s not surprising that her students start to feel that enthusiasm too, the infection spreading, if you will, as they start thinking like physicists.
Marianna 1:30
I know that I’ve done my job when a student says, Oh my gosh, I can’t drive my car without thinking about physics anymore. Or I’m always seeing physics through everything, and it’s driving me crazy.
Peter 1:43
We talk about all of that and so much more so without any further ado. How about we just jump right into our conversation with Marianna. We start off chatting about how she stays inspired through connecting with fellow teachers. Recently, she was doing that through the Illinois physics and secondary schools Partnership Program at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Marianna 2:11
about four years ago. Now, this idea started at University of Illinois. So in University of Illinois, Champaign has one of the largest and oldest physics education research programs in the country.
Peter 2:25
You went to U of I too, Alma Mater.
Marianna 2:28
Yeah, I did. That’s my alma mater. And actually, I had a couple summers prior, I was at the National physics teacher association meeting the American Association of physics teachers, which is in Washington, DC, and I had just casually come across my advisor at the school, and I was literally on my way to the airport within like, 15 minutes, and he he stopped me, and he said he wanted to introduce me to someone, and shared how I was familiar with this device that he had invented, which is called the IO lab. And what’s really cool about this device is it’s they, they brand it as a lab in a box. So it’s literally this, like three inch by two and a half inch plastic box, and it has all of the different sensor materials that you would expect in your traditional lab equipment. So what in a typical classroom costs, like, 800 to $1,000 to have all of the stuff set up.
Peter 3:33
This, like lab in the box tool is like $100 and science lab, swiss army knife,
Marianna 3:37
exactly, exactly. And so he invented this and with a couple of goals for the university. So one is that this device on campus, for students who are taking physics is like one of their required textbook items. And so they buy this device, and then they have the opportunity to experiment and collect data in their dorm rooms before they go to their formal lab. So that’s kind of a cool thing. They get to be actually working with materials outside of the two hours once a week that they’re in the lab.
Peter 4:12
Especially helpful the last five years during the pandemic too. Yes,
Marianna 4:16
yes, it was. So that was really cool. The other thing the university was working on was shifting their labs from more of a like cookbook follow directions verification to having more creativity in the lab and having students really working on that designing of the lab aspect. Because something we want students to be able to do who take science is learn how to do science, which is very different from regurgitating facts, learning how to design an experiment, learning how to ask a question. That’s why the Next Generation Science Standards that Illinois has adopted. That’s part of why those came through the way that they’ve come through. So I had gotten reconnected with my advisor at this conference 10 years after graduating, and it was because. Of making that reconnection that I then received a phone call to be part of this partnership when they were first rolling it out. So the university had this idea of, well, we have all this really great stuff that we’ve researched, and we know we have the evidence that it’s effective for our students at the college level. We want to see what happens if we take this stuff that we know is great and we’ve had a whole team working on it, and we give it to high school teachers. So there were four of us. We were considered master teachers, so teachers who had experience and knew a little bit about the U of I curriculum, and they invited us on for that first year, which happened to be the pandemic. So when you mentioned it’s really convenient during the pandemic, it was really convenient during the pandemic, they specifically the four of us all taught one section of AP Physics, C, which is the AP course that’s in alignment with at U of I physics, 211 and 212 which is that introductory course for the engineering students and the physics majors. So you could, if you wanted to use that curriculum and just use it with your students, and we each used it in a different way, and they basically looked to see how we used the U of I curriculum. We also had a chance to collaborate and share ideas, which is so special because all of us were the only physics teacher in our building, which is
Peter 6:29
very case at, like, probably, I don’t know about most, but at certainly, a lot of high schools,
Marianna 6:35
definitely a lot of high schools. It’s a weird chicken and egg problem, because you’ll hear some places say that, you know, there’s this need for high school physics teachers. There aren’t enough high school physics teachers. At the same time, there was some research done by the US Department of Ed’s Office for Civil Rights that said something like two in five high schools don’t offer any physics. So you have a lot of schools that aren’t offering physics, or if they do, it’s one section. And so instead of having like a physics teacher, physics so you have maybe one person who’s teaching physics, they’re usually teaching other things, and most of the time their training is in something other than physics. So it’s the chemistry teacher, it’s the math teacher. I remember one of my early field observations I was at a small rural town outside of Champaign, and the person who was the physics teacher was also, he was actually a math teacher who taught the physics class, and he was the football coach. So you can imagine how much time you have to dedicate to the teaching of
Peter 7:35
physics. So you have the same person that’s teaching all of these different subjects at so many schools and so like, they probably don’t have the time to, like, seek out the resources that we’re talking about that you guys are able to, you know, collaborate with. And, you know, having a teacher that has access to that and is, like, really, like, inspired and like, loves physics have probably, you know, obviously, like, having a great high school teacher makes such a massive difference in inspiring students to also want to pursue science and pursue physics in college.
Marianna 8:07
Yeah, it’s really cool that you mentioned that there was some data that was recently collected by the American Institute of Physics, where they asked physics majors what got you interested in physics, and by far the most common strongest answer were informal environments. So things like the steam program through NIU or museum opportunity, so informal science education followed right behind that by that high school environment. You always say you know on the podcast that, you know the idea behind the podcast is that we’ve had teachers in our lives who have shaped who we are. And you know, really, when I think about education, is about teachers shaping students, but also it’s about students shaping their teachers. And at its pinnacle, it’s teacher shaping teachers. Because when I think about those teachers who have made an impact on me professionally, and I didn’t see this when I was a student, but I’m able to see it now. Those teachers were the ones who were very well embedded in their communities, and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs. And so out there, there’s a lot of physics at my high school. There were 10 different people who taught physics in 10 different in the building,
Peter 9:28
wow. So there was a whole team, right?
Marianna 9:30
out there, there’s a informal organization called physics Northwest, and they get together once a month, physics teachers from all over the suburbs, and we have pizza and we share demos, and it’s this really amazing community. And my high school physics teacher, you know, every time I saw him, he would be like, are you going to physics Northwest? Or are you going to the national meeting? Or are you, are you going? Are you going? And then, very quick. Are you going? Turned into, when are you presenting? And anytime I went, it was, Oh, hey, have you met so and so, you know, this is my former student, Marianna. And by the way, Marianna, this is this person, and this person and this person and making those connections. And so when I moved to Rockford, and all of a sudden I had no connections anymore, not easily. Seeking out that community became really important to me, and so when the opportunity through the partnership came to be that was something I was really eager to join, also because the partnership provides a way for me to be a leader, but within my scope of teaching, and that also meant that I was eager to pull other people in. So when we joined the program, one of the things that they shared is they’re going through the list of here’s what we expect, we expect to view was, and this is 2019, they’re sharing this before the pandemic. They say, well, one of the things we’re hoping is that you will go visit some of the other schools, of the other people who are in the program, and the other three teachers, one is out in the Naperville area, and then the other two are down in the Champaign area. And I’m like, I don’t have time to drive that far. So I did cold calls on school, local schools in the area, and I found out who the physics teacher was at Belvedere and hananiga and DeKalb High School, and I just sent emails, and I was like, Hey, there’s this program, and it’s gonna pull us together, and it’s at U of I so this is really cool, and you should join and so, and everyone I emailed picked up on it, which was really cool. So now kind of starting to pull this network together in the northern Illinois region. That’s great. And oftentimes, you know, with when districts are trying to give meaningful professional development, they’re doing this for as many people as you know. It’s supposed to be as effective to as many people as possible, and we’re such a very small specific group of people teaching physics, and so we don’t always get that meaningful professional development from there. But there’s a lot of expertise around the teaching of science, the teaching of our specific student groups that we have, and we’ve all had different experiences with things that we’ve been exposed to. So I at one of the national meetings, I was exposed to something called the investigative science learning environment, or ile, which comes out of Rutgers University, and the research behind the aisle method of teaching, which is really all about getting students to do physics, the way that physicists do physics, right? I
Peter 12:55
think we kind of mentioned this a little bit ago in the conversation too, is right? Like, I think that a lot of times, students going in when they don’t have much experience in physics, they go in thinking that, you know, this science classes, we’re gonna, we’re gonna memorize a bunch of science terms, and that’s how it’s, you know, that’s what the class is. Instead of teaching students to be scientists and to think like scientists, which, at least to me, even saying that out loud, it sounds like so much more of an empowering thing.
Marianna 13:23
Yeah, and it’s really hard to do, even if students are getting some kind of exposure to that prior to physics, physics is the first time where students are truly there’s no way around needing to take the things that you’re learning and apply it to something that’s even just a slightly different from something you’ve done before. I often tell students at the beginning of the school year, this is going to be different. This is going to be different from anything you’ve done before. Because in biology, you’re a freshman, and so you don’t have any you don’t have any you don’t have the chemistry, you don’t have the physics knowledge yet to do biology. So you do a lot of memorization in biology, and then you get to chemistry, and now there’s math. But if you really think about it, if you really think about it, it’s pretty much the same math every time. Write down your knowns, convert it to moles, use your formula, convert it back. It’s it’s and you add layers to it, but it’s still the same math, fundamentally every time. And then you get to physics, and you have all of these concepts, and now lots of math and equations. That’s the part that they’re always really scared of
Peter 14:42
you say, you like to say that physics is not just math, which is a misconception a little bit sometimes, right? No,
Marianna 14:49
yeah. I mean, physics is, I mean, I tell students, physics is not about the math, it’s, it’s about the models, and modeling and thinking in that way is. New, and that’s different. It’s about using the math as a tool, but in order to know how to use the math as a tool, we have to figure out what we’re looking at, how we’re going to think about it first, and that’s that’s challenging, and that’s challenging whether they’re taking the most advanced AP Physics or they’re taking totally conceptual level freshman physics, and just like it takes time to adjust to like a new workout routine and your muscles are sore, it takes six to 10 weeks to adjust to thinking like physicists, and once we get over that hump, it’s not so bad anymore, but those first few weeks, it’s like, it’s like muscle fatigue on the brain, and that’s, that’s always really challenging. I
Peter 15:49
forget if it was one of been one of your blogs or a presentation that you gave where you were talking about how you’d crowdsourced a bunch of other physics teachers and asked them, like, what students find to be really difficult about physics. And, you know, again, the misconception might be that people would think, Oh, it’s just the math is way too hard. The math is way too hard. But overwhelmingly it was the like critical thinking and the thinking approach and problem solving aspect of that which, again, like teaching people to think like physicists and to do that type of problem solving is also very hard for again, like students who aren’t coming in with, like, a vast physics background,
Marianna 16:28
yeah, and it’s funny when I when I posted that I want to and there’s no way to control it, but I had specifically asked that people who had been teaching physics for at least five years answer that question, because the misconception about it being super math heavy, I think, is a conception that is common amongst the general public. That’s common, you know, within the counseling departments, you know, even other teachers, that’s just from the outside looking in, that’s often the case. I tell people I teach physics and, you know, I get one of two responses, either that they hated the class, you know, or like, oh, well, you must be really smart, because there’s this assumption that it’s connected to math, but it’s, it’s really about solving problems. And I think a lot of us who are in it, and a lot of us who are in it, especially on a teaching aspect, that’s the part we enjoy so much is that problem solving part and helping our students learn how to do that. I had done that during the pandemic, and I was asking for a lot of student feedback during that time so I could pivot as I needed to. And I had one student comment at towards the end of the year that they learned that physics was about learning what questions to ask. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. You got it. You got it 100% it is about figuring out what questions you need to ask, as opposed to what a lot of students are familiar with, especially from their math classes. And if they’re coming into physics, thinking it’s like math, they’re coming and thinking, well, if I’m going to do this problem, I write this thing down first, and then I follow these six steps in this order, and that gives me the answer. And that doesn’t work in our class. And that’s that’s part of that adjustment that gets challenging, is
Peter 18:20
that something that has been clear to you your entire time teaching, or is that something that you’ve really been able to home in on as you get more experience? Right? Because when you come in, obviously you’ve had some students teaching experience, but like you have all this content knowledge, but not necessarily communication experience, right to or again when, especially when you’re, you know, you’re not just teaching the concepts. You’re teaching, like how to be a critical thinker, how to ask the right questions that, some sounds like, something that is like, especially difficult if you’re a new teacher, and probably something that you know takes a lot of experience to really, really get good at.
Marianna 18:58
Yeah, it’s, it’s funny thinking about that and reflecting on that when I was so, when I was in high school, I actually wanted nothing to do with taking a physics class at all.
Peter 19:09
Why not? It wasn’t something that interests you. You didn’t think it was for you or
Marianna 19:13
well, so at my high school, after you took your first two years, your, you know, biology, chemistry, at that point it, you know, you could choose. It was essentially elective options. And we had, at the time, I was very, very interested in medicine, and considering going a medical route. And we had a like collaboration with the hospital across the street. And so there was this med tech class, and so you got to do a lot of work learning about that kind of work. And, you know, getting to kind of field trip over the hospital. And so I thought, like that would be really cool to do that. And I’m interested in it. And it was my mom, who was a former surgical nurse who did not take physics. Who insisted that I take physics and so and she said, and I remember her saying, You’re gonna take physics, you’re gonna like it, and I was convinced to not like it, just to prove her wrong. Oh, yeah. But that that quickly changed, very quickly changed because I was, I was a student who did always enjoy math, and I was good at math, and walking into those first few weeks of physics, physics gave math a purpose for existing, because now math is could be used as this tool to explain, to predict, to describe the world around and I just thought that was the most magical thing. Um,
Peter 20:48
so when your mom said you’re gonna take this and you’re gonna like it, it wasn’t like, you know, you’re gonna take this and you’re gonna like it like that, but it was like, You’re gonna take this and you’re going to enjoy it like she knew that youwould enjoy it.
Marianna 20:58
No, it was, yeah, it was definitely that supportive piece.
Peter 21:02
How did you know that you would enjoy it?
Marianna 21:04
I mean, I think because I had, I had always been interested in science and math and those kinds of things. And I think, you know, part of it was just being, like, generally supportive. Yeah, that helps. You probably gonna like it. You’re gonna like the challenge of it. I think was that that piece too. But it’s funny, because I had, I had had an interesting journey in in high school with regards to leveling. And I had everybody took regular biology. There was no option there, and and I had kind of slacked off, you know, towards towards the end there. And so my my teacher initially recommended me to take regular Kevin’s set of honors. And I said, Hey, I think I want to take honors. And he goes, okay. And so there’s this paper, signed the paper, and, you know, got an honors. There were some things going on in my family at the beginning of the year that made that first part of the year really challenging to focus on school at the time, but the beginning of the year is where you learn all the fundamentals for chemistry. So when rec season came around, my teacher was like, What’s your grade in math? And I was like, I have an A in math. And any like, he sighs and he thinks, and he goes, Oh, I’m going to put you in regular physics. And I was like, okay, and I was just kind of tired of fighting. I was like, well, maybe that’s I’m not smart enough, so that’s fine. And so I didn’t, I didn’t fight, and so I got in regular physics. I probably should have been in honors, but for me, being in that regular physics class, because I caught on so quickly, I also very quickly found myself being the person who was often explaining things to my classmates, and I really enjoyed that. And so I was already thinking, you know, at that time, I was thinking about how you talk about this and how you explain it to other students, and I was getting positive feedback there. But when I student taught, you know, I would go too fast or I would go too slow and and I remember it was my student teacher who said to me, he goes, You need to think about and plan out what questions you’re going to ask the students to get them where you want to go. And that was so critical, the idea of, like, Oh, you mean, you don’t just get up there and, like, talk and explain, like, I have to, like, sit and think about how to do this. And so I, I was really fortunate that in my training that was put on me right away and and something I’ve seen as I’ve progressed through my career is that, you know, as you keep learning and growing, there are things I’ve picked up along the way, and then there are things that maybe I picked it up, but then I read about it somewhere in some research article, or I experience it in a workshop, and I say, oh, that’s why it works. And now I’m doing these things intentionally, and so progressing through your career, I think, becomes a lot more about being able to hone in on that intentionality. One thing that comes up often, like, it’s a classic, any classic science question right where it’s like, here’s the situation, and then it’s like, which one is going to land first, explain your reasoning. And I was just thinking about how dumb that is, that we ask students a question that I mean, it makes sense, why we do it from a like grading standpoint, because it’s easier for me to say, Oh, you got the right answer and then read your reasoning. But from a science standpoint, like we don’t ever throw an answer out and then explain it. We start thinking about it, and then we mark that answer. And so having that conversation with my students of Yeah, it’s written this way. Don’t answer it that way, like, think through it and then check the box at the end. So it just becomes more and more intentional.
Peter 25:07
Yeah, that type of questions, like, backwards from how you would actually do it as a scientist, where, like, instead of just like, I’m gonna write down the answer, and then you have to, it almost takes more work to be like, Okay, why did I do this? And then try to, you know, come up and retroactively justify the things that you did, as opposed to, like going step by step, find, you know, applying what I know, applying the reasoning, applying them, all this stuff, until we finally reach our conclusion, which is how you know, actual scientific method stuff works. Well,
Marianna 25:39
it’s so often students will commit to a gut answer, and then they might even realize halfway through their reasoning that they’re wrong, but they’ve committed to the answer, and so they’re not willing to go back. And that idea, even outside of assessment practice, was something was another piece that I’ve grown in. I remember that one of the things that I felt very strongly about when I was kind of coming into my own as a teacher was that a lot of the teachers that I encountered early on in my career were what I would like to call showman physicists. So especially, I mean, you think about there are different organizations and groups that do like the big physics demonstration shows, and those are great, and they are fun. They’re fantastic. And I was involved in one of those organizations in college as well. The physics man is a traveling, traveling group that does physics demo shows. But the idea of being a showman in the classroom is not that’s just not my style. And there were so many things where you would set something up that was going to be intentionally tricky, like something where it’s going to do not what you expect. So the classic example is there is this apparatus that we have where you have two metal spheres, and you flip a switch and one of the spheres drops straight down, and the other one gets pushed off the ledge, so they leave at the same time. One is dropping straight down, one is thrown horizontally. And in my experience, as a student and as a student teacher, you set this up on the first day of the projectile unit, and you say to students, which is going to hit the ground first. And without fail, students say one of two things. They say the dropped one will land first because it’s going straight down and it’s the shortest distance. Or they say that the shot one lands first because it’s going faster, inevitably. That’s what they say. The truth is, is that they both hit the ground at the same time, and so this happens, and you’re like, Haha, it’s not what do you expected? And you know, and there’s this idea, you know, and I mean, it exists in psychology, that you know you have this experience, it’s counter to what you thought was going to happen. And so then, like, you’re going to remember it better, except they don’t remember it better. They still stick by whatever they said before. When you get to the unit assessment. And like, for myself being a student, I remember that that kind of environment was not an environment I wanted to engage with. Why I don’t want to offer something and then be wrong. And so when I was getting trained in aisle, the professor who was running it, her name’s Eugina Etkina, and she goes, when we do that, she goes, that’s like exposing shame when you teach in that way, and it doesn’t create that inclusive environment that’s going to have students offer up ideas, even crazy ones. And so instead, what we do now is we take the time to make observations about things, construct those models look at what’s happening. I have them work through it and think through it, and then make the prediction, and they all get it right. And that’s so cool, and that’s, I think that’s really powerful. And it the environment is so much more positive, and there’s so much more student engagement, there’s so much more student voice. It allows for a lot more students to engage. Because when I have them doing this, they’re working in small groups, as opposed to it being, you know, the demo with all 30 students and only hearing one or two voices. And so it really helps that entire environment.
Peter 29:35
You know, we talked a little bit about when you were in high school and you took that physics class, and that you found yourself helping a lot of other students that were in that class because you felt like, you know, you were able to get a little bit ahead, is that one of the moments that you had where you thought, you know, hey, I kind of like communicating this knowledge, communicating these ideas. Maybe teaching is something that I could do. I’m curious what. When did that all start to click into place for you?
Marianna 30:03
When you’re in high school, it is very difficult to see yourself as a teacher of high school students, like, because you are a high schooler, like, like this. So, I mean, I think at one point I was like, well, I could be a preschool teacher, because I, you know, like this idea of of teaching and explaining and working with people. So when I started that process of thinking about college, and I knew I was going to major in physics, and at that point, I had started to shift, and I was thinking, well, maybe engineering, that’s an option too. And I had seen that there were a number of schools that had a engineering physics program. And so when I applied to schools, I actually applied to schools that had this engineering physics program specifically, and I had my eyes set on U of I that’s that was the single one place I wanted to go. And so when I was there, even as a as a freshman, I basically was making sure that I had everything in line, that if and when I decided I wanted to switch and transfer into engineering, everything would be good to go. Because at U of I you have to apply to the education program in your sophomore year, so you major in whatever you’re going to teach, and then you apply to the program that sophomore year. So I had time to think about this and figure it out, and there were a couple of things that that had occurred. So one of them was a program that I went to over the summer as a high school student that was actually at the Greek Orthodox Seminary in Boston, and that program was all about vocation and finding your vocation in life. And it is that that program that I came home and I was like, Well, I think that teaching is the thing that I want to do, and working with other people, as opposed to working with things in engineering. But like I said, I went into college keeping the doors open. And then when I was a junior in college, I had established the Society for women in physics on campus. And when I established that organization, so there are a couple of things that happened anytime I’d run into faculty at U of I the conversation went like this, we would exchange names, and then the professor would say, where are you applying to graduate school? Not what are you doing when you graduate Where are you applying to graduate school? Like to get a PhD in physics, which only 25% of physics meters do. But that was always the question. And then I would say, Oh, I’m gonna go teach high school. And then the professor would go, Oh. And that was the end of the conversation, deflating. So I yeah, I started panicking that I was, like, settling for less, and, you know, not doing the thing I’m supposed to do. And when we established the Society for women in physics, we were also doing a lot of things that were involved with, you know, the physics graduate school stuff you don’t I mean, whether it was the very first event we hosted was like, how to get into grad school seminar, because a lot of the students from U of I do end up applying to graduate school. And then we ended up hosting the second ever Midwest undergraduate women in physics conference. And so setting that up, bringing in our speakers, doing the lab tours, those kinds of things. And I really started to panic that I needed to like do physics grad school. So much so I sat down with the person who was in charge of admissions for graduate school, and I said, I think I want to do this, but I don’t think my application would be strong enough. And he was willing to just let me stay at the university an extra year to get my master’s, to get those extra classes under my belt, which was crazy. But every summer after my sophomore year, I had gotten a job working with Northwestern University Center for Talent Development. So that’s their gifted program, and I was a TA for that program. And the very first summer, which was kind of the first time I was starting the wonder and panic. Had the most unusual year. I was a TA for an engineering and physics class for fourth through sixth grade. And in this class of 18 students, we had three students from India, like two students from China. We had a little girl from Paris. We had all these international students in there, which was so cool. I’d never had that many international students in that program ever again. But that first summer, we had all these international students. And the little girl, who was from France, she was kind of quiet, her conversational English was phenomenal. But because we. Doing physics, that technical language was not there. And so I took my four years of French in high school, but that’s it. But I started translating the class notes for her into French, and then it started to click, and, you know, the lights started coming in her eyes, and she started getting excited. And so each summer, I would go back to this program and be involved in this way with the teaching of physics. And each summer, I was like, this is the space that I need to be in, because this is the space that brings me the most joy, and this is the space where I can see that my talents can grow. The other thing for me with teaching is that I became a teacher because I love this content so much, and I love sharing that with other students and seeing them love things the way that I love things
Peter 35:59
I think infecting them with passion. You could say,
Marianna 36:03
Yes, infecting them with passion. That’s my tagline, because, and because it’s true. And the thing about infection, right? And infection is something that it becomes pervasive through, like all aspects,
Peter 36:13
and we’re all very familiar with with that concept these days.
Marianna 36:18
And that’s just, I know that I’ve done my job. I don’t I don’t need a student to like my class. I know that I’ve done my job. When a student says, Oh my gosh, I can’t drive my car without thinking about physics anymore, or I’m always seeing physics through everything, and it’s driving me crazy when I hear students say that, and it happens sometime between like December and January. I know that I’ve done my job and I that’s just the coolest thing for me.
Peter 36:46
That never gets old, to see that click into place for people,
Marianna 36:50
it’s, it’s, it’s really something special. And sometimes they’re inspired to go into physics or pursue physics, and sometimes they’re not, and that’s fine, but being able to see that joy, see people thinking in a different way. See, I get a lot of, you know, I think there are so many students that come to my class expecting to not like it, and to see joy is something that is so cool and so special. And that’s, that’s the part every time I think about because I think there’s a lot of teachers, especially after the pandemic, that think about leaving the classroom, and you know what other options are. And anytime I think about that, the question I always ask myself is, okay, even if the salary is higher, even if the job is more flexible, is that thing going to bring me more joy than I currently have and for all of the issues that exist in the system, problems and all of those things, every time I ask myself that question, the answer has always been no, that thing is not going to bring more joy than what I Get in the classroom. And it’s funny because I see, you know, colleagues of mine who have left teaching, and colleagues where I’m like, I’m Wow, I’m really surprised that that I can’t believe that that person left teaching. And actually, one of my colleagues recently, who they they left, they retired. They were fed up with the system, fed up with the problems, and they left. And I was really shocked and surprised, and I ran into them over the summer and, and she’s like, Yeah, I’m coming back. And it was, to me, it was no surprise, you know, of course, you came back because, and we had this conversation of every time I think about it, does it bring more joy? And, you know, we agreed on that, that for all the problems, that joy of working with students and being able to share a passion in something, it overrides all of the other frustrations that exist, and they are there, and they’re strong, but that piece is is just so critical.
Peter 38:59
That’s fun. Actually, in one of your you wrote a series of blogs and then, like, four specifically for new teachers. And in that, at the end of it, you post this note that I think it was your cooperating teacher when you were student teacher wrote to you, right? And they talk about, like, you know, not losing your passion for teaching, not losing your passion for for learning and sharing. And, you know, I was thinking about that because, like, of how you kind of keep the flame lit after, you know, so many years of teaching and stuff. And in my experience, like, when people it’s really when you start losing your passion for learning and, like developing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and once that starts to not become as enticing and as exciting, then you know, obviously you’re going to be less passionate about sharing that next thing. And I was curious again for you, it sounds like community, and obviously you know that joy that you get from the classroom. Um, is a big part of it. And also this community of other teachers you have, I’m curious again, especially like these last five years or so have been so especially challenging for for teachers that you know, if you start to feel yourself, you know, and you’re really in the midst of the school year, of getting just exhausted, and you’ve got your head down, you’re trying to put out whatever fire is nearest to you, of how you’re able to kind of keep that passion burning and and keep that lit when you’re really in the midst of it,
Marianna 40:31
it’s, it’s really hard sometimes. And I think that, you know, there’s a few things I one, I I’ve been really fortunate that I have worked in three different districts, three very different districts, in different locations. And I’m thankful for that, because that taught me that there is one there’s garbage everywhere. Doesn’t matter, there’s garbage everywhere. And so that helped to teach me the difference between the garbage that is the system of working in public schools, and that’s part of the system, and I can’t change that part, versus those parts that maybe are really specific to the space that you’re at. And so being able to separate those two things is really important being able to remember that within that scope, each of us has a circle of influence where we can make an impact. And there may be days we want to, like, burn the whole thing down and reconstruct the whole thing, but the circle of influence is that space where you can actually make an impact, and remembering that that’s the space where you can make change is important finding, you know, whatever that community, whoever those people are, to help rejuvenate you. The other thing, and there’s all kinds of memes about this, is that there is a cycle in the school year, and that cycle in the school year is wonderfully predictable, and so when we get to that October slump, just that very cognizant reminder that this is the October slump and it will pass is so critical, or those weeks right before spring break, you know that’s like, this will pass and we will get to the next thing, and then, really, truly, those community things are the things that are so rejuvenating. So I get to go right now. I’m on the board of directors for the American Association of physics teachers, so I am required to be at all the national meetings while I’m on board, which means I get to go to a national meeting in January and in July. And those become hugely rejuvenating to be around other physics teachers who share the same values and the same depth of passion that I share, and we can talk about some of the things that are really bothering us at the moment, and then we can talk about the things that are exciting us, actually a couple years ago. So there’s a book that’s become really popular in the math space called Building thinking classrooms in mathematics. And there’s a lot of ideas and principles in there that are flipping the way that we think about our classroom spaces and expectations of students and teachers. And there were several of us on Twitter who had started reading the book. And some people suggested that they you know, like, boy, if there was a book study, you know, I would read the book. And so there were three of us that said, let’s do this. Let’s make the book study. And so we we did. We started this book study. We shared it on Twitter and the Facebook groups, and we had over 100 physics teachers from across the country and one in Italy sign up for this book study that we ran synchronously and asynchronously. So thank you pandemic for teaching us how to teach. We had four zoom calls. The author joined us for one of the Zoom calls. Did a cold call. Just reached out see, hey, do you have time? And that was, that was so cool. And, you know, there were times if I was like, not feeling great at school, I could, you know, click into that or work on some of the things that I needed to work on there. And so finding that community is just absolutely imperative for continuing that joy. And you’ll find something that you can click into or latch on, and then you can get excited about something again. And but life has its ups and downs, you know, and it’s not always in one place forever.
Peter 44:45
Yeah, yeah. We mentioned up top in the conversation about the kind of thesis statement that the show has about how, you know, everyone has had a teacher that inspired them, helped them become who they are today, that sort of thing. I was curious again. For you. I know that you obviously, you work with a bunch of teachers, I’m sure, and know a ton of teachers that inspire you as even as you’re you know working as a teacher yourself, right? But generally, when I first ask you the question, when I first pose teachers in your life that you want to shout out, who made a big impact on you, who are some of the first people that come to mind for you. So
Marianna 45:21
I want to lead this with and I think I mentioned this before that. I I did not recognize the importance and value of my teachers until I became a teacher. Yeah, it wasn’t a situation of like, Oh, wow. I had this amazing teacher, and they were amazing, and they did all these amazing things. It was more like I did school and I did my thing.
Peter 45:44
Yeah, I feel that Me too,
Marianna 45:47
I recognized things as I entered this professional life and and there’s so much that I learned once I became a teacher about these teachers. So so my former AP Physics teacher, John Lewis at lyrk South High School, was just phenomenal. Had no idea how phenomenal he was when I was a student, but it was after I started teaching that that made all the difference. He was the one that was encouraging me to go to meetings. He was encouraging me to present at meetings. He was the one who made sure I got connected and and that stuck with me, not not just what I like took from that, but that model of behavior that this is how you bring someone into community. You ask them, When are you coming? You ask them, when are you presenting, or you say like you’re having a conversation, wow, that’s so cool. Why don’t you share it at the next thing? Because those conversations are so validating to your work. We’re so isolated so often, and so few people understand what we do, or can look at what we do and say, Wow, that’s good, and understand why it’s good. And so those experiences were so important. When I was a sophomore, I had another phenomenal teacher who I didn’t I knew she was phenomenal because I loved her class. Her name was Natalie jackison. She was my math teacher. She was the first person who recognized that I could be more than what I was giving her. I had an A in her class, and she told my parents at conferences, she goes, Well, she has an A, but it could be a lot higher. And she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t let me settle. But when I was in her class, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in math and science teaching. And so she was gone for a few days to go to DC to receive that award. And so, you know, as a student, you’re like, wow, they must be really special if they’re getting that award. In retrospect, I can see all of these things. She’s really involved with the National Council of Teachers in mathematics. She took a sabbatical to write a textbook with the University of Chicago. So again, she was really involved and connected in all of these other ways outside of the school that she could then bring back into the school. I mentioned my cooperating teacher was so important to me, he would drop pieces of advice that I would roll my eyes at that I, you know, in hindsight realize how important they were. You know, there’s the small things like, plan the questions, you know, do the demos. That’s fine, yes, because I messed it up. But then there were the bigger things, like, you know, someday you’re going to have a family and other things, and you’re not going to be able to spend all of your time working on teaching. And I had a couple people say those kinds of things to me. There’s another teacher who said to me, you know, there’s only so much you can do. And I was like, Gosh, you’re so lazy man. And but they all, they all recognize that I, you know, I was a go getter, I was a perfectionist, and that if I didn’t figure out where that boundary was, that I was going to burn myself out. And as much as I rolled my eyes at those statements, you know, eventually I got to a point where i i can use that as a way to set boundaries, which is important to maintaining that healthy balance and maintaining that Joy in Teaching. Rockford has this partnership with Rockford University, where teachers can get their master’s in urban ed for free, which is super amazing. And the director of that program, Annie Badu, she is just phenomenal. I did that master’s program, and I grew so much during that time, and I really have to thank Annie for that, which was so neat to be a student while I was being a teacher and to learn as I was actively in front of the classroom. So yeah. I’ll list those three for now. Yeah,
Peter 50:01
you mentioned about when you were in school, and that those teachers kind of saw something in you right then, maybe even you didn’t recognize at the time. And about how even when you were in high school, initially, you didn’t necessarily think that you wanted to take physics. And I’m thinking again about all these like, you know, the misconceptions that we were talking about, that people have about, you know, either that this is all really hard math, so I don’t want to take it, or just like, This is not a class for me. People just kind of intrinsically and that could be a school culture thing. It could be so many things that contribute to that. And I’m curious about, like, the ways, and, you know, some, maybe some of the stuff is within that circle of influence that we talked about, of trying to make physics classes inclusive for everyone, and make sure people know that they can take those classes, especially, you know, in a school like Auburn that you teach at, that is, you know, a very, very diverse school and has a whole bunch of, you know, I think majority of low income students trying to make sure that people know, everyone in the school knows that, like, this is the type of class I can take. This is for me. Yeah,
Marianna 51:09
that part is where there’s a lot of hard work that’s not, that’s not the obvious work. Part of this starts with a lot of misconceptions about what physics is and who does physics. So there’s the idea that physics must be really hard, that physics must be a lot of math. When you think about who is a physicist, people think of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton. You’re thinking about old white guys who are geniuses, and in their room they’re like coming up with these things all alone, you know, which is not how science is done. So part of this, part of this part of the work, really and truly, is about being a history teacher and taking the time to teach a full history of science. So for example, when we talk about light and refraction, so how light bends through material. So when you look at your straw in a glass of water, and that straw looks broken and it looks magnified, and why that happens, and the math rule that makes that occur, you know, is called Snells law. And you know, Snell was a German scientist, and but if you look through the history of that, Snells law was actually first discovered by Ibn Sahl, you know, in the Middle East. And so that’s something that is important. And so that’s one of the conversations that we have, is having this full conversation around science in my class, we do actually take time to talk a little bit about conceptions and ideas in science in general, and also setting the stage for why these conversations are important and important as we’re starting to study physics. And so one of the conversations that we have is, is physics a subject that is mostly subjective, or do you think it’s mostly objective? And actually, we do this early in the year. So we’ll pose the question about is science something that is mostly objective or subjective? And I actually have students line up in the room, so we put objective on one side, subjective on the other, and they line up all over the place. So you mentioned, Auburn is a very diverse place, so there are a lot of very diverse thoughts here. And it’s really interesting to see how the students spread out. And they will, and they will start arguing with each other about it, that science is facts, and so it must be completely objective and is what we see. And then there are students that are a little bit on the way down that are saying, well, but also what comes out of science is based on the conclusions that we humans make about those observations and so funny, because that’s your experience.
Peter 54:06
This these same conversations happen in journalism classes too, right? Like, is journalism objective? Am I just the watcher on the moon that writes things down as as the events of the earth occur, or it’s like or are things, you know, the the stories that we choose to pursue are based on our personal experience and who we are and where we come from, and all these different factors. It’s so funny to this, which totally makes sense, why you guys are having those same conversations too,
Marianna 54:31
and people aren’t. People aren’t ready to, like, have that conversation in a science class, right? Like, like, you have it in a you know, if you’re doing having that conversation in, like English or social studies. It makes sense, because you have those conversations in those spaces all the time, but all of a sudden your physics teacher is asking you to do this, and it’s like, what is going on right now? You know? And then we start, we continue to have that discussion. And one of the things I ask students, this is a great example. I say, How many of you know who Onesimus is? Is, and nobody knows who Onesimus is. And Onesimus was a black slave who we can actually attribute our understanding of inoculation to, because where he was from in Africa, when like the plague would come through their like doctor would basically take, he would, like, puncture through one of the boils of somebody who was ill, and then he would put a small cut and somebody who was not ill, and then they would take the pus from the boil and put it into the person who was not ill. And this process helped people not become so sick. And so when the plague was making its way in the Boston area, he had shared this information with his slave owner, who then started inoculating people according to this knowledge from Africa. And that actually helped to slow the spread of things in the Boston area during that time frame, but that’s knowledge that that was not Western white knowledge. And so having that story is important. So we start with those stories we also have there’s this wonderful set of two lesson plans that come from a program called step up. It’s through the American Physical Society. And one of the lessons is a careers in physics lesson, because typical tagline that we talk about, about doing physics is that, if you major in physics, you can do anything in life, but anything is not helpful. So in this lesson, what we do is we ask students like, Okay, what do you think a person can a person can do with a physics major? And they say, you know, they can become a physicist, an astronomer, a physics teacher, a physics professor, you know. And then there’s this survey where students, they click on, you know, what kinds of things are important to them in a career. And then what areas are they interested in? And after they do that, the survey then matches them with a whole bunch of different people that and their biographies that do all kinds of different things, but they have a physics degree. So you have somebody who is a journalist and they have a physics degree. There’s this guy over there who’s like, he’s like, a professional skateboarder, and he has a physics degree. You know, Diana cower in the Physics Girl. Who’s those YouTube she’s a YouTuber. All these different there’s a pediatric cardiologist, so the folks in medicine, because a lot of cases, yeah, high school physics teachers in there, of course. And it’s really eye opening for students, that physics really is this foundational thing that affects how you think, how you perceive the world, and so that there’s a lot you can gain from that, even if you’re not going to go become like a classical physicist, which you think in that context. So we do, we do those kinds of things. I also, this past year, one of the things that I did was because I was actually trying to help promote students taking our most advanced course, the calculus based AP class. And I actually invited a panel of student alumni to come and who’d all taken the class, and I just wanted them to come talk about what they were doing in life. And they are doing all different things. They consultants in med school, and one kid is studying physics, but all different kinds of things, and that was really cool for students to see. The next thing that I do, that I’ll share here, is something that I call identity encounters. So with that, students are exposed to different individuals who are doing physics in different ways, from different backgrounds. So this actually the site. The idea for this came from there was another teacher who, during the pandemic, was doing interviews with people that she knew from Mount Holyoke College, and she herself was somebody who was kind of pursuing a lot of arts things in addition to her physics degree. And at Auburn, I have a lot of students that are in the Creative and Performing Arts program. And one of the students that she interviewed, she was a senior, and she was double majoring in physics and dance, and her for her senior research project, she was actually investigating the physics behind her like Capstone choreography piece for her dance class, and incorporating those things together. But in the midst of that, you know, she’s also talking about what it means to be a black woman in Physics, and what that encounter is in growing up, because that’s not something I can share with my students at all. I don’t, I don’t have that background that’s not, you know, my positionality, but that’s a way for me to share that with my students who can relate to that, and so they have a chance. It’s to see that and encounter that and reflect on that. So there’s a lot of different things that I pull in which don’t all necessarily look like traditional physics curriculum, but they’re important parts, because I think, you know, as teachers, we’re not just there conveying the content, we’re also establishing relationships with our students. And there are a lot of meaningful ways that we can do that, because whether you know, whether we intend to or not, we are explicitly and implicitly teaching our students all kinds of things about our content and who can do that, and what that looks like.
Peter 1:00:36
I think that’s a great place to wrap up. Marianna, that’s pretty much all I had for you, and I’m really glad that we got to make this happen.. Thank you so much.
That was Marianna Ruggerio. She’s a physics teacher at Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois. Thank you so much for listening to teachers lounge as always. Feel free to nominate a teacher in your life to be on the show. It’s how we get our great guests like Marianna, send them our way to teachers lounge@niu.edu and wherever you’re here in the podcast, subscribe, leave us a rating or share with a friend if you like what we do. It really is the best way to get even more perspectives on the show. You can subscribe to the teachers lounge newsletter if you want to keep up to date with everything going on with the show. You can find a link to do that on this episode’s page over at W nij.org A big thank you to the Northern Illinois band. Kind us for the music you hear each and every episode of the show, and I’ve been your host, Peter Medlin, and we’ll be back with a new episode of teachers lounge very soon. See ya
Physics.Teacher.Momma. 