Category: Classroom Issues

ABCs of How We Learn… V is for Visualization
Activities · Classroom Issues · Science of Learning · Teaching Methods

ABCs of How We Learn… V is for Visualization

Marianna RuggerioLeave a comment

If there’s one thing I find myself iterating repeatedly to my students its the importance of writing things down. Students who are used to doing well in school, and especially in math, often find they are able to solve most problems without showing a great deal of work. In physics, however, that becomes nearly impossible. Aside from showing work for the strict mathmatical portion of a problem, what is almost always more important is that initial diagram.

One of the critical and beneficial features of drawing a picture is that it allows for cognitive offloading. By sketching a graph or a force diagram or even just a physical diagram, now there are details about the problem that no longer need to be held in the working memory, which clears space for the problem solving.

When we use whiteboards in class this also creates the additional benefit of having a shared focal point for the group, which enhances attention and focus on problem solving when working as a team.

The other benefit is that once we begin to create visualizations, we may begin to notice structures and patterns that were not initially obvious or intuitive.

In a 2011 paper, Drawing to Learn in Science, Ainsworth, Prain, and Tytler advocate bringing drawing into the science curriculum because visualization enhances student engagement, helps students learn how to represent information, helps students learn to reason in science, is a major way to communicate scientific data and models, and is a learning strategy.

Drawings also provide us, as educators, quick and descriptive insights to student understanding and possible misconceptions. What students may not be able to adaquately articulate in words may be articulated through a picture.

The initial construction of motion maps with students and a bowling ball is a great example of this. First we run several experiments: letting the ball roll freely, constantly pushing the ball in the direction of motion, pushing the ball opposite motion. As this is happening we drop a mark behind the ball at equal time intervals. This creates a physical visual on the floor which students are then asked to translate to their white boards.

Once students have completed this pattern, they are instructed to craft the arrows to indicate the direction of travel of the ball.

After this we can discuss the meaning of and how to obtain the direction of the change in velocity.

These steps are generally well-received by most students. The misconception that most students initially bring to us is that “negative acceleration means slowing down”. In this case, as we continue to provide additional cases (such as an object moving to the left while speeding up) he visualizations serve as a tool to help students undo this particular misconception. They can see for themselves that when the direction of Δv and v match, the object is speeding up, when when Δv and v are opposite the object is slowing dow.

Force diagrams and energy bar charts are additional examples of visualizations that end up being imperative for problem solving.

What frequently seems to be the challenge is that students will generally not choose to complete these vizualizations. I cannot count the number of times I’ll have a very bright student come to me in frustration and the first comment I need to make is “where is your force diagram” “where is your bar chart”. It is for this reason I believe that its critical that the vizualizations become a no-excuses requirement in the work at all times.

For example, here is the hand-out I provide my students as part of their force notes. Their homework takes an identical three-column format

While the physicsclassroom.com interactives and conceptu builders are fantastic drill practice, the fact that they are on a screen reduces student uptake on physically creating the necessary representations. This is why I’ve created paper companions for most of the assignments I assign students. (Example below)

Like our students, we should actively shift our thoughts around diagrams from something we just happen to do in physics, to a critical learning tool that is backed by research and allows our students more engagement and depth thanks to cognitive offloading, emergent structure (finding patterns), and reorganization of material to get a new perspective.

ABCs of How We Learn… O is for Observation – Building STEM Identities in the Classroom
Activities · Classroom Issues

ABCs of How We Learn… O is for Observation – Building STEM Identities in the Classroom

Marianna RuggerioLeave a comment

In The ABCs of How We Learn, Schwartz, Tsang and Blair dedicate the O chapter to Observation. Specifically, they are addressing Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. Social learning theory considers how both environmental and cognitive factors interact to influence human learning and behavior and at its core is the idea that humans will model after those who are similar, high-status, knowledgeable, rewarded, or nurturing figures in our lives.

The classic experiement that is referenced is the Bobo doll experiement, where children who observed an adult beating up the Bobo doll were more likely to mimic the same agressive behaviors

Learning through observation is certainly something we see with learning that involves kinesthetics. It is also the foundation of the Montessori Method. In our physics classrooms, however, it is not necessarily immediately relevant. The mere observing of the teacher engaging with a complex derivation is not going to translate to meaningful learning. Additionally, the original theory carries with it some challenges, specifically that there is a lack of clarity on the cognitive processes, a likely overemphasis on observation and a difficulty in predicting behaviors. Just because a child observes something doesn’t necessarily mean they will reproduce the behavior, or reproduce the intended behavior. Nevertheless, we do know that when modeled behaviors are also paired with verbal reasoning “I’m going to do this because…. so that… ” and so on the intended learning is more likely to translate.

So I am going to choose to diverge this post a bit from the original text.

The key idea behind social learning theory is that humans will model after those who are similar, high-status, knowledgeable, rewarded, or nurturing figures in our lives. For a student this translates to friends, popular peers, respected teachers and caring adults. Much could be said here regarding the norms chapter and the choices we make as educators to build those norms in our classroom. What I’d like to focus in on, however, is the idea of modeling after those who are similar and knowledgeable. Specifically, I’d like to take about the importance of representation in the physics classroom and the formation of STEM identity.

We discussed this a bit in the Belonging post, when we consider a person’s identity we know its composed of many different positionalities.

When we add the layer of a STEM identity, a huge piece of that web is, indeed belonging. Belonging can be threatened by imposter syndrome and sterotype threat, and it can be enhanced by being “seen” as a STEM person by one’s peers, faculty members and family. In short, a person’s STEM identity is highly dependant on the same people who they might choose to imitate under the theory of social learning.

One of the simplist and most powerful activities I have used in my classroom is the STEPUP Careers in Physics lesson. You can access it online. In the activity you begin by having students brainstorm careers a person might have with a bacholer’s in physics. Then, students engage in a short career match survey. After submitting, they are “matched” with people who are like themselves, but who happen to have a degree in physics in a variety of fields. Although the lesson is explicitly teaching, “you can do anything with a physics degree” due to the intentional selection of diverse representation in the available bios, the lesson is also implicitly showing “you can be anyone and have a physics degree”

In Gholdy Muhammed’s book Cultivating Genius, she outlines her Historically Responsive Literacy framework. In the framework one of the core ideas is that equity is not a one-off lesson or PD session, but rather something that is engrained at the center of our work. The framework identifies four areas: skill, what do we want students to be able to do, but also identity (who am I, who do I want to be) intellect (gaining new and authentic knowledge about the world) and criticality, which she defines as capacity and ability to read, write, think, and speak in ways to understand power and equity.

When I first learned about this framework I started incorporating what I dubbed Identity Encounters in my classroom where we took time to learn about different, current people in physics, who came from a variety of backgrounds. While we ultimately learned about their work in the field, we inevitably also got to hear about their challenges as well.

The underrepresentation curriculum project takes things a step further to explicitly talk about injustice and inequities in STEM. Research has shown that when we make these explicit in discussion with students we are able to mitigate the effects of imposter syndrome and stereotype threat. I’ve run these lessons as periodic lessons between physics content as well as a longer unit during which we also watched Hidden Figures while examining the themes we discussed in class.

Physics educators such as Elissa Levy have gone so far as to redesign their curriculum in such a way so as to include a more full history of the physics we are teaching, rather than just the classic, Western-European cannon.

We know that teaching physics is an uphill battle where some students decide they aren’t fit for the course from day one because they already have a deeply embedded identity of not being a math person. I firmly believe that when we can demonstrate that science is done in community over isolation, that failure is much more common than strokes of genius, and that there exist many different paths and identities to studying physics, our students can begin to learn and identify that they, too, can become a physics person.

Former students with guest speaker, NASA Scientist Renee Horton. In this group 5 students are physics majors and all of them are STEM majors

Teaching Students How to Score Better
Activities · Classroom Issues · In My Class Today

Teaching Students How to Score Better

Marianna Ruggerio2 Comments

At the American Association of Physics Teachers Winter Meeting I had the privilege of presenting in literally the best session of the entire conference (no bias here at all). Magically, all four of our presentations beautifully complimented one another and related deeply to engaging students in metacognitive skills.

I transitioned districts this year. In my previous district I worked with a lot of students in the gifted program, a lot of students in the creative and performing arts program (who are basically also gifted) and within this culture and climate, all kids benefitted, even the ones who were not in a special program. For years I was able to get students on board with the Expert Game, and the Science of Learning Physics some trust in the process, and good relationships. This year, that hasn’t quite cut it. I’d been thinking about a way to somehow “teach” students in a way that feel like “teaching” to them about how to learn, study and grow so they might buy into the idea (which is really nothing new).

I had been digging back into Powerful Teaching and some kind of workshop was begining to materialize, albeit very, very fuzzy. And then, at Winter Meeting, Aaron Titus gets up and shares that he offers a “How to Do Better on the Test” workshop which turns out to be “How to Learn”

The workshop is grounded in the work of Dr. Saundra McGuire. There are a lot of resources of hers around the web, like this lecture here on metacognition, but primarily she has a sweet little book called Teach Yourself How to Learn. It’s short, sweet, to the point and a lot of fun to read. Dr. McGuire is a retired chemistry professor and Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success. She is also an awardee of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Mentorship.

Immediately in chapter one she discusses one of the aspects about college that is hardest for students: getting As and Bs in high school often comes down to memorization and regurgitation. Now, before you come with fire I know that many of us (especially if we teach AP, and definitely if you enjoy my blog) are making students do incredible things. But I also know that you can probably name more than a handful of colleagues who don’t push their students beyond memorization. Teachers who produce study guides that are basically a carbon copy of the exam. Exams that are almost all multiple choice and the math is strictly plug and chug. The dreaded triangle to “support” students doing equations like F=ma. And if not the teachers themselves, some really great high school students simply don’t get pushed beyond needing to simply show up to class to learn the information. They can get away with minimal to no homework and no studying and still do okay in the class because we see them every single day and they work hard in our rooms.

So the workshop starts by introducing students to Bloom’s Taxonomy and we have a conversation about what level they are operating at most of the time, compared to what level they need to operate at for AP Physics. What level do they think they need to operate at in college?

And sure enough, if you pull up the science practices and skills for AP the word “create” is literally all over the place. The top of the pyramid.

From here we took a look at a recent exam question. First I asked them a simple question:

Which of the following is true about work?

  1. Work is effort
  2. Work is a change in energy
  3. Work is a force

They all know the answer. And this is a recall answer.

Then I showed them the exam question (they did really poorly on). While the question fundamentally was about the fact that work is a change in energy, what they were asked to do was apply the concept of taking an integral to calculate work and then create a graphical representation.

From here we discussed the differences between studying and learning and posed the question, “which would you work harder for? To study to get an A on a test, or prepare to teach the material to the class?”

The latter half of the workshop is about sharing strategies for doing homework, reading the text, and using practice exams. (You can find all of these in Dr. McGuire’s work and resources!)

I summarized some of these along with my personal favorites into the following list:

  • When you get home from school, write down everything you can remember from class that day, then compare with your class notes to identify/fill the gaps
  • Did you solve some problems? Grab a clean sheet of paper and solve the problem again. Compare to the example and make notes regarding your forgetting/gaps
  • Create a concept map to tie together big ideas and conceptual details
  • Make “teacher notes” as if you were preparing to teach the material
  • Aim for 100% mastery when you sit to study, not 85-90

As we wrapped up, the most important part of this workshop was asking students to make a commitment to do something different in the next 24 hours. I had students submit these along with some additional reflections. There were two that stood out to me today. One student reflected, “The reason this class is so challenging for me is because I haven’t had a class besides maybe Calc that required me to be at that creating level.”

A second student made an observation that knocked me over in joy:

“Physics is more than just who is smarter and has the ability to think at a higher level.”

And with that, I’m signing off. I’m going to attach my version of the slides, but everything is very much thanks to the work of Aaron Titus and Saundra McGuire.

Identity Development in the Physics Classroom
Classroom Issues · In My Class Today

Identity Development in the Physics Classroom

Marianna Ruggerio3 Comments

Download posters from the featured image here

Why do you teach? It’s certainly not for the competitive salary, the great respect from society or the flexible work schedule. Do you remember writing that philosophy of education statement? What did it say then, what does it say now? Most statements say something along the lines of “I believe all students can learn” “students learn at different rates” “students need to be met where they are at” so on and so forth. What is critical here, is the use of the word “all”.

The reality is that while every teacher might say they believe in “all” our school systems are not designed for “all”. They never were designed for all. When the rubber hits the road and we’re deep in the muck of teaching we categorize “those” students, whatever that means. “Those students” will go straight to military/factory/automotive shop so “they” aren’t interested in higher math or physics. “Those” students don’t need physics because they aren’t majoring in science. A far more insidious part of this reality is that “those” students are overwhelmingly growing up in poverty and are often our Black and Hispanic students.

Furthermore, in spaces such as physics, this idea of “who” does physics is even more exacerbated in the larger scientific community. The work of identity building, literacy development and social justice do not exclusively live in the realm of english and history courses and “African American Study” courses, it is work that belongs to every single teacher who claims “all students” deserve the opportunity to learn and grow.

This work is challenging and it begins with most of us sitting with a lot of discomfort. It also involves a large volume of reading and listening on our part. In physics, especially, this work can seem even more challenging (and some argue unnecessary!) because it is not clear how this work fits in the scope of a physics class or perhaps if you are ready to tackle the work you are unsure where to begin.

I had the pleasure of diving into two incredible books this year, Culturally Reponsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond and Cultivating Genius by Gholdy Mohammed. I truly believe that these two texts together serve as an excellent foundation for engaging in the work of narrative shifting within you classroom. Hammond shows us how our cultural underpinnings shape the way we interpret and learn information while Mohammed brings hundreds of years of Black excellence and literacy to the forefront of education in today’s classroom.

Muhammed lays out what she calls the Historical Relevant Literacy (HRL) framework. In the framework she identifies four critical components: identity, skill development, criticality and intellectualism. One of the most important details of the framework is that culturally relevant learning should not be a one-off lesson in a particular month to celebrate a particular group, but rather engrained in every fiber of the curriculum to consistently give students the opportunity to learn about others and themselves within their coursework. 

Physics Identity Encounters

For the last few years I’ve made a deep dive into issues of representation in physics and the largest recurring theme is the importance of developing a physics identity. It became clear to me how the HRL framework could apply to my own classroom. With the added challenge of the pandemic I knew that trying to recreate and do everything with excellence would quickly lead to burn-out and failure, so I made the decision before the year began that I would make connections and relationships my number one priority, with identity development as a critical component of that priority.

Twitter and the sweeping social justice conversations has made it easier than ever. With everyone working, teaching and learning from home, many people began to develop content that was accessible to all in the form of webinars and other livestreams. I began to integrate these opportunities in a rather fluid manner into my classes. For each, I asked students to reflect on what they had heard. Specifically, I asked them to do the following:

  • Discuss a concept or theory that resonated with you
  • Discuss a concept or theory that challenged you
  • Discuss a concept or theory that left you wondering
  • Discuss a concept or theory that resulted in an “aha” moment for you.
  • Last, (if not included already), discuss how the concepts discussed might apply to you as a student.

In October I livestreamed an event from Women in Science that featured Dr. Jessica Esquivel (here’s a link to the talk). She talked about identity and the sciences, but perhaps more importantly she told her story as an AfroLatinx woman from Texas who wanted to pursue a PhD in physics and what that meant as she navigated conversations with her family, peers and colleagues.

Dr. Esquivel was also a foundational member of the #BlackInPhysics movement, which was primarily geared towards college physics students. The movement included a roll call, in which black physicists used the hashtag to introduce themselves and their work. Through this movement I learned about Tamia Williams who has put together an incredible project called Being Seen of interviews where physicists and physics students talk about how they integrate physics into their passion for the arts. Her participants reflect an immense diversity of backgrounds. Aside from the obvious coolness of this, many of my students are part of our district’s highly competitive creative and performing arts program.

The last guest of the year was a former student of mine who is finishing her physics degree. She already has an incredible story about her own journey and future plans. Not only did my students get to interact with someone who is underrepresented in physics, they heard it from someone who has truly been in their shoes.

Student Reactions

Students shared how much they enjoyed the assignments. Many of my students saw themselves in the stories that were shared. One of my students, after reflecting on her shared experience ended her reflection with, “I think videos like this should be shown more often to high school students. It was inspiring to me so I know it will be to others as well.”

Students shared themes of resilience and recognition of the systems in play in their reflections. “a theory that blew my mind was that if you can’t go down the path that you want. then you should make your pack and do not let anyone bring down your path and not let you reach your goal.”

“How and when can we all breakout of that cycle and until when will we be able to help each other instead of judging and being ashamed of mistakes that we will learn from? She really opened my eyes to see how not just physics in general but all types of sciences are competitive expertise and how some people really struggle with the subject and that it’s ok to not get it right away. Her words were comforting for me and now I really have a different perspective and input on physics from listening to her.”

Another reflected (unknowingly) on stereotype threat, “Most of the time I do ask whatever questions I have to those around me but I often hesitate in doing so for fear of sounding unintelligent. But like Olivia Lowe said, we’re all learning. No one in the class is an expert in physics. It’s likely everyone’s first course and even if it isn’t, physics is a difficult subject. It’s okay to be confused. No one should have a fear of getting the help they need.”

I was also really impressed by the impact the assignments had on my white students. One shared “I was just wondering why people struggle for being different. I don’t understand because I have never had that experience.”

I could say all of these things to my students all day long, but hearing it from someone who is in the field, who is a current student and who has shared lived experiences is far more powerful than anything I could ever lecture them about.

In case you were wondering, this is what I believe about teaching and learning. As a teacher in physics, and as a female teacher in physics, I believe it is my obligation to give all students who come to me the opportunity to expand their minds not just as students of science, but as stewards of our world and society. I belong to a school where the rich student diversity in background and expression is what gives life and vibrance to our school hallways. As an educator it is my responsibility to show students that they belong and are capable of success in any course of study they desire, because we need that same vibrance from diversity of thought and experience in order to tackle the complex problems in our world.

Teaching is so much more than ensuring students have content and content-related skills. We have the very special opportunity to help children envision and create their future trajectories in life. This is a great responsibility that we can never forget.

Classroom Issues

Physics Teacher Shortage? Not so Sure

Marianna Ruggerio2 Comments

“You will be SO markatable”

“You will have NO problem finding a job”

“You’re certified in physics, chemistry AND math?! You can get a job anywhere!”

Those comments have all been said to me. Because, you know, I have a physics degree, I’m a woman, and I have a pretty cool set of experiences. And yet in 2011, when the recession hit the teacher landscape, I found myself sitting in over 20 interviews with no success. I spent the next two years working as a tutor after being rejected from the physics teaching job at that school and also teaching math at night school and chemistry at summer school. I was also teaching summers and Saturdays at Northwestern’s gifted program. All of these things together plus private tutoring scrapped together a decent salary. But after 20 interviews and no success getting a full-time teaching job…I won’t even get into what that did to my feeling of self-worth, especially when I caught a student from summer school telling her classmate about me, “she’s not even a REAL teacher”, a day after which her mom showed up “lost” so she could scope me out.

Here’s a snapshot as of right now within a 50-mile radius of where I live

Screen Shot 2018-03-16 at 8.35.32 PM

That’s right! One job. And guess what is under the job description “chemistry endorsement desirable” Yep. This is not a 100% physics job. This is a physics job with a chemistry prep.

Mind you, there is no shortage of people here! My city is just under 150,000 people and our public school system consists of 5 high schools. There are numerous private schools in the area representing the Catholics, Lutherans and several other Christian denominations. There is one teacher in each building who teaches physics and I am the only teacher who gets to teach physics all day. I am also the only teacher with a degree in physics. (I am part of the 12% nationwide that’s a woman physics teacher with a degree in physics) The second sentence is the one that seems to get all of the attention by Universities and PER groups.

APS put out this report which doesn’t quite sit with me right. You see, they reported these findings, among others, regarding why individuals want to and don’t want to teach:

“by far” as the report mentions, the number one reason why individuals don’t want to teach is because they fear “uncontrollable or uninterested students”

The minute I saw this I questioned the results. WHO ON EARTH are they talking to? Well, APS, you got me to check out the whole report. Here’s who they surveyed:

Screen Shot 2018-03-16 at 8.44.44 PM

Only 64 people who completed the survey are committed teachers of high school physics! Most everyone else involved was currently within the University setting (students).

Newsflash: You have NO idea what the classroom is like until you get there. Betsy Devos is a fantastic example of this.

Turns out, when you put a person who’s mildly competent at teaching and cares for the craft, the ‘disinterest’ and misbehavior are rather subdued. Make no mistake: it takes 3-5 years to get into a groove and to start to master the management aspect, but that can be said of most any job.

The report also discussed the various incentives people are given to go into teaching:

1. “Access to high-quality courses at my institution that prepared me to be a successful teacher.” 2. “All my student loans could be forgiven if I were to teach for 5 years.” 3. “Better teaching salary.” 4. “I would not have to spend extra time in school to obtain a teaching certificate.” 5. “I would be given free tuition for extra time spent obtaining my teaching certificate.” 6. “There are currently scholarships available for people in science and math teaching certification programs. Scholarships up to $20,000/year are awarded on the condition that, after earning a certificate, one teaches two years in high-needs areas for each year of financial support.”

No surprises here, but every single one of these is an extrinsic motivating factor. While usually somewhat effective in getting the ball rolling, it is hardly sustainable when the rubber meets the road and the nitty gritty nastiness of this job break forth. And let’s be real here, if it’s money that motivates you and you’re smart in the sciences, it doesn’t take too long before you realize an engineering job in the private sector is going to let you pursue your passion AND be up for raises AND get you 6 figures a lot faster. (and you get to pee whenever you want).

I would like to posit that there are three things that need to happen if we really care about highly qualified teachers in STEM

(1) We need to devote SERIOUS time, energy, effort and money into the teachers who care about their craft of teaching and get them the support to teach physics well. PhysTec is trying to do this and is providing amazing opportunities for teachers. We need more of this. New Jersey also implemented teacher training to boost physics in their schools. They actually see physics as the gateway to STEM careers. Turns out, the results were amazing. Not only has physics enrollment boomed, it has boomed amongst minority students, and their AP scores have boomed along with it.

(2) We need to advocate for physics and STEM education outside of our STEM bubbles. Too many of us are like our students, solving the problems we already know how to solve because it feels good. Telling each other about the importance of physics makes us feel good, but how much of that is getting out to the public? To parents? To students? To board members? To administrators? To politicians? Here’s an example of the difference in two districts:

District A has a strong STEM program, including an exclusive engineering academy. District A historically has offered Conceptual, Regular, Honors, Engineering and AP Physics C. There are 11 teachers who teach physics at some point in the day and although physics is not a graduation requirement, it is a norm that all students take physics before graduation. Since district A does not offer AP Physics 1, parents band together to ask the administration to run the course so that students who want to take an AP Physics can, even if they are not engineering bound. 

District B has a weak physics program and would like to promote more students taking AP courses. However, district B refuses to run a course if less than 24 students enroll. None of the schools in the district are able to offer AP Physics. AP Biology runs sporadically. One year 20 kids signed up for AP biology but the district said this number was too small and canceled the course. Infrastructure is falling apart and although there is a 10-year facilities plan, staff have been told that they will only consider re-evaluating science rooms when they see if any money is left over. 

These kinds of things go on all over the country. The simple matter of fact is this: unless a district is well-endowed with funds and/or parent advocacy, STEM is not supported on a very basal level. Because STEM requires space and equipment, which requires funds, and requires a continuous influx of funds in order to maintain the space and equipment and up to date texts.

Most of the folks way up high in school systems are pretty clueless when it comes to the needs of STEM classes. It’s not their fault, but if no one is truly advocating, they have no reason to funnel funds in that direction

(3) Our current physics teachers need to feel valued. They need great mentors. They need networks. I was really fortunate to have this “growing up” my AP Physics teacher was huge on intentional mentoring of rising teachers, he introduced me to Physics Northwest, which got me tapped into AAPT. From there I developed an amazing network of Chicago teachers. One of the teachers I met through this network, Shannon Hughs wrote an article in The Physics Teacher about the importance of this mentorship. Shannon probably doesn’t remember this, but at one of my first PNW meetings, she was sure to come up to me and tell me about an opening at her high school. The manner in which she approached me stood out and I regretted the fact I had accepted a job already. She was already putting to work what she had learned from her mentor. Then I moved an hour and a half away from Chicago and I lost this network. After 5 years of living out here I discovered the amazing community of #iteachphysics on twitter. It is these communities and mentorships that re-invigorate my passion for teaching.

Here’s the deal: no one goes into teaching for the money. We go into it for the passion. The passion of our subject, the passion to invigorate our students, the passion to see others learn and grow. The best teachers are these people. You can’t train that and you can’t crank that out of any big PER study or think-tank group. But there’s a catch…if I can’t do my passion every day, why would I stay in it? For me, it’s because my passion for teaching and students is greater than my passion for physics. If it were the other way around I probably would have finished the MS in electrical engineering I started in 2013 and I would be working in the industry now. Yea, that’s right, I was almost one of those numbers who left the field. Because the reality was that the field left me. I was moving to a place with no jobs and I had a department head who was almost begging me to join the department (this is a much longer story than is appropriate for this blog post). I am incredibly fortunate that I am in the position I serve now, it is literally everything I have dreamed of doing.

Pushing a bunch of physics undergrads into becoming high school teachers with extrinsic motivators is only going to create two things: teachers who lack the true empathy, patience and motivation to serve a student population and a bunch of graduates who think there’s a million jobs out there when actually there are just a handful. If they land one, chances are they won’t teach physics all day. In 2014 I taught 5 sections of Earth Science with the promise that if I took that job I would have physics the following year. I love teaching, but when I got those physics classes in 2015 after not being a physics teacher proper for 4 year, it was incredible how my motivation and job satisfaction sky-rocketed.

The very real fact is that physics is still undervalued. Everyone assumes it’s too hard and unnecessary. Much like the “Oh I never did well in math” statements that can cause math anxiety in children. Every kid who walks into my classroom walks in with fear and dread because they have heard horror stories. And yet, if they talk to any single student who made it past October, the critical 10-week learning curve, that student will tell you “it’s hard, but it’s fun” or “it’s hard, but you just have to think about it” I fight these preconceived notions tooth and nail every day, but when adults everywhere are telling them otherwise, they have no reason to believe the physics teacher that physics is a good place for them to be.