So, Why Do You Want to Be a Teacher? Maybe the Negatives Are Actually Positives

Duane Merrell, Brigham Young University

It might seem impossible to convince students to become physics teachers. Why would they want to enter a profession with so many challenges? To join a profession that gives ever growing class sizes of middle and high school students, funding shortages, and little time for preparation? Further, a teacher’s duties don’t end in the classroom. A teacher is a counselor, hall monitor, track coach, lunch duty monitor, STEM club advisor, detention monitor, honors advisor, dance chaperone, ticket taker at school events, engineering club mentor, Saturday School teacher, senior class advisor, accreditation team member, district science supervisor, science department head, and the list goes on and on.

Why would anyone go into teaching? In the Physics Teaching Program at Brigham Young University (BYU), we find that some of the reasons our students choose to teach are often the same as the reasons that keep others from the profession. Students choose physics teaching for the chance to help, mentor, direct, and empower students in the same way that a teacher helped, directed, and empowered them.

BYU physics teaching majors are drawn to the profession so they can teach of course, but also so that they can participate in the growth of students in ways that extend beyond the classroom. These students were influenced in the band room, on the soccer field, with the Science Olympiad team, in the choir, on the football field, in the math club, in peer helper groups, in the tutorial labs, and these, as well as many other influences, draw them toward teaching. These young teachers don’t view it as a hardship to teach but rather as a way to give back to the system that shaped them into the teacher they want to be.

Students teach because they want to be the engineering club advisor or the science Olympiad coach. Some want to help with the school play, or even be a class advisor. Why a teacher would want to be a student council advisor, I do not know, but I do know that these young teachers sometimes thrive with all the little extra duties that many would think might deter students from choosing teaching as a career.

Most of the students in BYU’s physics teaching program have already worked directly with others through two years of service. About 75% of all BYU students have lived and taught in locations with different cultures than their own and have even developed language skills to connect with others. These personal interactions of being able to witness the change that education can bring in an individual person’s life seem to resonate with the teaching students, and it creates a desire to continue to make a difference in other people’s lives.

Teaching, and the satisfaction of teaching and empowering people to grow and succeed through education, is a driving factor in BYU students deciding to become physics teachers.

Daniel Lynn, a physics teaching major who just completed his first year as a physics teacher, perfectly demonstrates these traits. Instead of student teaching with a mentor teacher present at all times, Daniel was a teaching intern. This means that Daniel was the teacher in the classroom for the full year. While he collaborated with the physics teachers at the school and received support from BYU’s mentors and supervisor, it was really just him, the lessons he developed, and the students. Despite these challenges, as well as the financial challenges of paying for tuition while only being paid a half salary for this internship, Daniel thrived. What made Daniel do this? Why would someone with no experience walk into a teaching job for half of the salary that a teacher next to him earns in order to finish his physics teaching degree? I think it’s Daniel’s desire to make a difference through teaching physics. I visited Daniel’s classroom often over the past nine months and these visits helped me feel good about the job I am trying to accomplish — to mentor and develop new physics teachers. What other job brings a new task, maybe a refreshing problem, and possibly even a new challenge each day?

With only a tennis ball, Daniel can engage his students in trying to understand the vertical and horizontal components that describe the motion of a projectile. As Daniel and his students toss the ball back and forth, they don’t even notice that they are learning — that each toss conveys an idea that they will be discussing that day. Watching these interactions helps me appreciate the talent of these young teachers.

Daniel’s motivation to teach is something that I am not sure I can even describe, but there is a real piece of him that resonates when he works with students. It’s a grand adventure that goes beyond physics; it is both the connection they build as something is learned and the deep rewards that come from understanding each other.

Although Daniel could find a comfortable, well-paying teaching job next year, he is taking his skills overseas to further his big adventure teaching students physics.

The reasons someone may choose not to teach are many times the same reasons others choose to.

Duane Merrell is a faculty member in the Department of Physics at Brigham Young University (BYU) responsible for physical science teaching students at BYU who are earning Earth Space Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Physical Science degrees. BYU moved the preparation of these secondary education physical science teachers from the College of Education to the College of Math and Physical Science in 2004, and has graduated more than 175 students in the past 12 years, with 139 as certified physics teachers.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.