Teacher Journals: "Scott Thompson"

9/23/2006

“I didn't realize they let you guys out,” said the professor, surprised to learn that a few TEP students had enrolled in his class. Out of our internship sites? Out of our cages? Out of our cloning vats? He was being funny, not insulting. But the comment lodged in my memory alongside several other odd reactions I have received to my enrollment in a graduate school of education.

Earlier in the first week of classes, my neuroscience professor convinced himself that I am in the School of Medicine. I blame his confusion on the ability of the auditory cortex to make predictions. I said “Hi professor. I need your signature to cross-register since I'm in the School of Education.” He heard “Hi professor. I need your signature to cross-register since I'm in the School of.” Then some high-level neurons in his brain sent an inhibitory signal to the cortical stack representing Education, and a stimulus to Medicine. I can't blame him. Brains make predictions all the time, whether we want them to or not. But why did his brain so easily tune out the possibility that I might be in the School of Education? And why have I been so sensitive to the reputation of schools of education since I first decided to apply to Harvard's Teacher Education Program?

Flash back to the fall of 2005, when I was beginning my third year in an almost ideal teaching position. I was the only physics teacher at a small, new, private Jewish high school in Houston. I taught all of the classes that matched my interests and training (physics, calculus, logic and computer programming). I developed and taught my own curriculum. I played ultimate with the kids on Fridays, assistant coached soccer, planned and chaperoned week-long outdoor trips, and enjoyed the many vacations afforded a gentile teacher by the Jewish calendar. Colleagues, administrators, students, and sometimes even parents told me I was doing a good job. I didn't believe them, but I knew I wanted to commit to teaching.

When I told my supervisor that I wanted to apply to graduate schools of education, he told me that such programs are just cash cows. Many of my colleagues reacted to my plans by reminding me that I already knew how to teach. But I wanted a larger perspective on education, extensive professional feedback on my teaching, and a certification for public school teaching. Dodging another Houston summer would be a bonus.

This past summer in Cambridge surpassed my hopes. Even before my cohort arrived, TEP had begun implementing a number of simple community-building conduits, so I knew a few names and faces when I arrived. The other TEP students have taught me as much as the coursework. Teaching at the Cambridge Harvard Summer Academy stretched my classroom management and motivational skills. My summer students jumped from being confrontational to focused to apathetic to inquisitive, but my teaching team adapted with creative flair. And the professors of my own summer courses at HGSE often modeled good teaching practice while covering the theory behind it. All of my reasons for applying to teacher education programs were directly addressed by the TEP summer component.

Now, two weeks into the fall semester, I continue pursuing my goals, building on the foundation provided during the summer. My new courses are exciting and challenging. The school site where I intern is dramatically different from my previous school, and therefore dramatically useful in developing my teaching skills. And occasionally I find time to relax and socialize. My future entries will explore such topics in more detail.

I paint a rosy picture, but of course the program is not perfect. Some of the summer coursework fell far short of the standards of rigor and depth that I expect at Harvard. Some of my colleagues have had challenging relationships with mentors or with each other. And I'm told it actually gets cold in the winter up here. But TEP leaves us with enough control to make the experience our own, to write our own story.

10/20/2006

Where should I teach next year? Given the perennial shortage of physics teaching candidates, I expect to have a few options. My experience on Tuesday at my internship site, which I will call Agile Charter School, provided a glimpse of one possible future. On Thursday, I explored an alternative that left my head spinning when I visited a TEP colleague at one of Boston's large struggling public schools, which I will call Big Urban Public. Big Urban Public was recently targeted for major reforms due to its failing track record. Agile Charter School, by contrast, is an innovative community recognized for its high passing rates on state exams. Agile Charter School is a 350 student charter school that focuses on discipline and academic basics for students in grades 5-12.

This semester, I spend two days per week on site at Agile Charter School teaching two 9th grade physics classes and engaging in planning and various observations. Next semester, I will take over the two classes completely and immerse myself in the school culture. On Tuesday, I covered my mentor teacher's two physics classes and his two chemistry classes while he was absent. As usual, the students were well behaved, focused, and prepared, allowing me to work on improving some relatively minor aspects of my teaching: time management, board space management, and getting the quiet students to participate. I went home pleased with the students' progress, but still looking for more ways to improve their critical thinking skills and self-motivation.

On Thursday, I visited one of my fellow TEP students, Elton, at Big Urban Public. First period, I observed Elton's AP Biology class, but his mentor was absent, so most of the class was taught by a visiting doctoral student. It was clear that none of the students would earn anything higher than a 2 on the AP exam. The activities were inefficient and often wildly inaccurate. To the extent that the students were focused on anything, they simply wanted to know the right answer. There was no evidence that they had been trained to think in terms of broad patterns or biological concepts (structure-function relationships, etc.). They were so overburdened by misconceptions and further plagued by class activities that barely skimmed the surface of the content that I cannot imagine any of the students would find anything interesting about the subject. I left feeling frustrated on behalf of the students, suspecting that they had not received much in the way of reliable, engaging, quality science instruction during their academic careers.

My second observation at Big Urban Public gave me hope. Elton and his mentor had been assigned a new ESL (English as a Second Language) physics class. Everyone in the class spoke Spanish, except for the teachers. On the day of my visit, Elton was meeting the class for the first time. Without his mentor, he was also faced with the gargantuan challenge of teaching them some physics across the language barrier. Elton did spectacularly well. He was patient and focused on the physics activity, doing frequent checks along the way to make sure the students understood his communications. Once the students realized that Elton had the patience and skill to help them, they became very focused on learning. The students who knew more English helped translate for the less skilled English speakers. One girl began practicing her English writing on the white board after she finished one of the physics activities. They very much wanted to learn. The ESL class, at least, will be able to bond and learn with Elton as a patient guide.

I completed my visit by observing a Physics II class. The students entered the class complaining about how much they hate physics, how it is completely irrelevant for them. Elton struggled at first to get them focused on the activities, but not for a lack of effort. Meanwhile, the substitute sat at the back of the room, earning his pay by reading the newspaper. The students had developed a profound skepticism and low expectations of their classes at Big Urban Public. For the second half of the class, Elton asked for my assistance, and we each worked with half of the class to go over some word problems in a review packet. After coaching them through one of the problems, they were suddenly excited to apply the same approach to more of the problems. Their math skills were quite good, and they enjoyed working through the problems, which made their earlier negative comments about physics seem incongruous. By the end of the class, two of the students had concluded that math was essential to everything else that they study. Several of the students told me about their career plans, almost as though they were looking for verification that they weren't setting their sights too high. After some genuine thank yous from the students, the school day ended, and I stepped off of the emotional roller coaster at Big Urban Public.

Suddenly, Agile Charter School seems like a sterile (although sensible) option, while Big Urban Public would be an endeavor requiring the greatest passion, patience, and fortitude. If I stay at Agile Charter School, or end up at a similar school, I will be stepping into a system that, at least on the surface, seems to be working. I will be tending a well-maintained garden. If I end up at a school like Big Urban Public, I will be tearing out weeds, digging through the nutrient-starved topsoil with my bare hands, chasing away invasive critters, and cursing the elements, all in search of some fertile soil where something beautiful and useful might grow. Where should I teach next year? If I wanted the safe life, I would have stayed with the private school in Houston.

12/15/2006

I have followed the career of Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize winning high-energy physicist, since I read his popular science book, "The God Particle," as a teenager.  After he obtained some prominence for his research, Dr. Lederman took an active role in high school science curriculum reform.  As early as 1998, the year he was awarded the Nobel, he pushed for the Physics First curriculum, in which high school students study physics as freshmen, then move on to biology or chemistry.  In 2001, San Diego and Cambridge public school districts adopted a Physics First curriculum, and Boston Public followed soon after. 

Even before I started my teaching career, Physics First seemed like the most logical approach.  How can a student understand the physiology of the eye or the cellular function of proteins without an understanding of the physical properties of light and intermolecular forces?  Physics sets the stage for the other sciences by establishing the most fundamental known theories of motion and energy.  Further, physics lab activities lend themselves to an introduction to scientific methodology since they often consist of direct measurements on simple systems.   Physics First detractors argue that physics cannot be taught properly without trigonometry to describe vectors.  But much of the resistance to Physics First has come from experienced physics teachers who would have to trade their small classes of self-selected, often advanced upperclassmen for overcrowded classes of freshmen taking a required course. 

Although I find the argument for teaching Physics First compelling, I can sympathize with the concerns of the experienced physics teachers who have resisted the change.  However, I believe the struggle is with teaching freshmen, not so much with teaching physics to freshmen.  My freshmen struggle the most with sustaining meaningful discussions.  For example, they find it entertaining to ask questions, often very good and relevant questions, in the hopes that they will send me off on some tangent so that we won't cover the content they need to do the homework.  When I turn the questions back on them, they quickly lose interest or feign ignorance.  School is still a game for many of them, the object of which is to get the highest grade while doing the least work possible.  I can no longer count on students sharing my interest in the weird physics of Lederman's popular science books.  Instead I include more practical, real world physics applications: simple machines, engines, electronics.  The more I reflect, the more I realize that most of the challenges of teaching physics to freshmen are not at all specific to physics.  I have found their math skills only a minor obstacle to teaching physics concepts.

In theory, students can still take trig-based or calculus-based physics as upperclassmen.  In reality, however, the small schools movement in Boston has constrained scheduling and course offerings such that very few advanced science electives are being offered, if any.  The charter school where I teach now offers only Environmental Science for seniors.  There are no advanced or AP science classes because the school lacks the funding of private schools and the economy of scale of the old, big public schools.  Even the science and technology oriented small schools that resulted from the sectioning of the old public schools in Boston are too small to offer much in the way of advanced science coursework.  To the extent that my anecdotal observations are representative of larger trends, the Physics First movement combined with the small schools movement is providing a broader (and, hopefully, better) science education for the majority of students, with fewer options for those with talent and interest in the sciences.  Again, this is profoundly, if a bit selfishly, disappointing for teachers who once taught physics as a capstone course for their students.

Physics teachers might just need to suck it up.  Is physics important enough to require it for all students?  I say yes.  The benefits of reinforcing their basic algebra skills while building a proper foundation for their studies of chemistry and biology outweigh the frustrations physics teachers who have been relegated to the trenches.  Perhaps the lack of advanced science course offerings for interested upperclassmen can be mitigated with independent study options, or opportunities to take classes at local colleges.  Physics First is a worthy experiment.  What a shame that its impact on students has not been convincingly researched on a large scale.

2/28/2007

Five minutes into my preliminary interview with Boston Public Schools, I realized what TEP and three years of teaching experience had done for me. The principal of a BPS school sat across from me, business-friendly, glancing from me to my resume to the list of official BPS interview questions. From what I could tell, each question on his list was followed by two blank lines for comments and a grading scale from one to seven. I answered most of the questions by starting with, “In the past, I have tried X, which resulted in Y, but in the future I might change X to Z.” I could then step outside of my personal teaching perspective and frame my response by considering the relationship between my teaching and various entities in the larger system of education: students, parents, administrators, local and federal policy, and non-academic institutions.

At the end of my interview, the Principal unofficially informed me I would receive a Letter of Commitment. BPS provides these Letters of Commitment early in the hiring season to signify their interest in promising job candidates. The letters carry all of the significance of Congressional non-binding resolutions. I eventually received the letter, a portion of which I signed to reciprocate with my own non-binding commitment to BPS.

My interviewer then described a math opening at his school, and he asked to observe me teaching at my internship site. I eventually turned him down, preferring to hold out for a physics position. But any lingering fears I may have had about finding a job were calmed by my first official BPS interview.

Within a couple of weeks, I secured a follow-up interview for a physics position at a BPS pilot school. In the past decade, BPS has responded to the growing charter school movement by forming pilot schools where the teachers are still unionized, but the school has more control over its own finances and freedom to innovate with the curriculum than normal public schools. The pilot school where I interviewed focuses on integrating technology into the curriculum at all levels and in all subjects. Given my tech interests and my resume, it seemed a good fit. At the time of the interview, I was prepared to set aside my preference for teaching mathematical physics to help fill the need for qualified physics teachers. My internship site, for example, has not been able to find any qualified physics candidates, so they are forced to hire someone with a biology degree to teach physics next year. I declined the opportunity to interview at my internship site primarily because of philosophical differences with the school's mission, and for more practical financial reasons.

My interview at the pilot school went smoothly until I realized that I could not honestly tell them that I was 100% committed to teaching freshman physics. While I have learned to deal with freshman quirks at my internship site, the freshman physics curriculum differs substantially from the mathematical physics I have taught in the past, and it is further removed from my own physics interests. I could teach a few sections of freshman physics, but I also need contact with more advanced students. Otherwise, I might as well be teaching chemistry, a subject for which I have no particular passion.

The shift in my focus away from teaching freshman physics resonates with one of the themes in the TEP coursework this year. Particularly in my School Reform class, taught by the director of the TEP program, Kay Merseth, we have examined education issues by treating the relationships between the teacher, the student, and the curriculum as the central core of education. Any policy decisions, funding, and administrative supports that fail to address the core are pointless. If my talents and interests do not align well with the students and curriculum in my classroom, then the students are better off with a teacher who at least has particular interest and experience in working with students of that age. A deep understanding of the content provides no advantage if I am not able to use it in the classroom.

3/30/2007

At the beginning of the TEP summer program, I took a Myers Briggs personality test along with my fellow interns. Knowing our own tendencies and those of our colleagues, it was hoped, would help us work better in teams. We discovered which of 16 categories best describes our respective personalities. I am INTP: Introverted rather than Extroverted, I ntuitive more than Sensing, Thinking over Feeling, and Perceiving rather than Judging. My opposite and, according to certain questionable websites, perfectly complementary life partner, would be ESFJ. I was skeptical, to say the least, of the predictive power these categories for establishing successful teams.

My advisory group proved to be the most successful and rewarding team experience for me this year. Every two weeks throughout the year, I met with three other interns and our advisor. I assumed initially that we would merely complete our assignments and jump through the hoops required for our teaching certificates. I did not anticipate the emotional support and invaluable friendships that ultimately emerged. Presumably, we had a complementary set of Myers Briggs types. But I do not believe the Myers Briggs system does justice to the lovely chemistry that emerged in advisory.

Inspired by a fellow intern in my advisory group (Anne, described below), I find the Peanuts characters to be a more instructive system by which to measure personality traits. For example, I consider myself to be rather high on the Linus scale. Linus is rarely seen without his security blanket, nor I without my hat, but he is equally well known for his philosophizing and intellectualism. Pigpen's unapologetic sloppiness parallels my own unapologetic social awkwardness. Throw in a dose of Charlie Brown's simplicity of mind and heart, and you can begin to understand how I interact with the Peanuts characters in my advisory group: Anne, Rose, Joan, and our advisor Nancy.

Anne planted the seed for my Peanuts Personality Type System by comparing herself to Lucy, who is best known for yanking a football from Charlie Brown's feet just before he can kick it. Repeatedly. Indeed, Anne displays many levels of endearing guile. Her first Lucy moment with me was a friendly wager over a college basketball game. Carolina was clearly a better team than Duke that day (and again in their second meeting), breaking my sporting heart and obliging me to praise Anne and the Tar Heels in this very journal to satisfy part of our wager. Clever. But Anne also reminds me of Charlie Brown's kid sister, Sally. Anne has been known to develop spontaneous crushes on friends, perfect strangers, and dog walkers, a highly distributed variation of Sally's crush on Linus. Anne, an English teacher, convinced me to read my first ever Jane Austen novel, expanding the scope of my leisure reading in ways that have altered my perspective on literature. For this I am eternally grateful.

Rose, like Anne, had no prior teaching experience before TEP, but she impressed our advisory with her hyper-commitment to connecting with and inspiring her students, making the advisory assignments her own and making the most of every opportunity to participate in school life at our internship site. Schroeder's prodigious talent as a pianist and his intense focus while playing match Rose's efforts throughout the year. The beauty of the strands of Beethoven he weaves match the ambition and intricacy of the lessons that Rose brought to the students who were fortunate enough to be in her classroom. Rose's intense focus is balanced by a dash of Peppermint Patty's playful side and her fiercely protective tendencies towards those she perceives as innocent and deserving. Rose's students benefit from every aspect of her character. From Rose I learned the importance of backing up adventurous teaching with thorough preparation.

Joan is Snoopy. While he never demands center stage, Snoopy manages to touch the lives of every character around him with an unselfconscious idealism. With intelligence and caring, Joan engages in the lives of her students and friends, and helps us to see our own goodness. After my earliest conversations with Joan at the beginning of the TEP program, I felt that she appreciated the significance of all that I value in the study of physics, refreshing my enthusiasm for being a physics teacher.

Between the four of us, Joan, Rose, Anne, and I cover the Peanuts spectrum of personality types. But our advisory would be no more than a jumble of cartoon characters without our version of the Peanuts illustrator Charles Schulz. Nancy, our advisory leader, guides us, organizes us, watches over us, cheers for us, and supports us. She draws the frames around our experiences as developing teachers, and she adds color to make them distinct and significant. I will count myself fortunate to find such a group of friends and colleagues when I return to teaching full time next year. In them I have found the advice, therapy, and intangible support that even a veteran teacher needs.