I think my enthusiasm was probably born into me.
It’s not something that I ever chose and
when I started teaching I didn’t really
think it was that important.
I thought it was most important to have a
deep understanding of the material and so
for my first class I prepared by reading
a bunch of graduate textbooks on the topic,
which turned out to be of no help whatsoever.
And when those course evaluations came back,
that’s what really struck me is that the students
rated my enthusiasm very highly, and
I hadn’t even thought I was very enthusiastic.
I think it just comes out naturally in
how I feel about the topic.
Since then I’ve decided that it’s a great way
to keep people with me and that’s why I do it.
That’s why I don’t try and keep my own
enthusiasm down, because I know different
teachers have different styles, and I think
sometimes I’m a little over the top for some
students; but it’s the only way I know to
keep people on board with what I’m saying.
And I do really love what I do, now that I’ve had
a chance to advise students and see what happens
to them in their lives I’m always sad when I see
a student change his or her major because
he or she wasn’t getting As in it.
And I love physics, I love astronomy, I always have,
and that’s what keeps me coming back every day
and what keeps me going into the classroom.
So, for me, it’s like air, it’s a part of my life.
I think that enthusiasm is different than entertaining.
What I’m passionate about is the
material that I’m teaching.
I’m not passionate about me, and I’m not
passionate about the students, this sounds terrible,
doesn’t it, but I think that if I really cared
about how they were experiencing moment
to moment I would tell more jokes.
I love telling jokes, I love making people laugh,
and I do have to try not to overdo that.
What I am most passionate about is actually
the physics; and I want people to learn, but
I want people to learn it because I love it,
because I think that it’s fascinating and
interesting, and wonderful; it’s intellectual food
that I can’t live without.
So I think for me the difference is that my
number 1 priority that I’m trying to convey
is my enthusiasm about the material.
So I’ll put myself in a bad light.
I’ll make the students uncomfortable.
I’ll do whatever I have to do because it’s
the material that actually comes first for me.
You know, Astronomy 103 is a great example
of what the challenges are.
It’s a great class because people
don’t know what to expect.
What they think it’s going to be coming in is
not what it is, and it’s a great story to tell.
The story of how we know what the insides of stars
are like is a story I will never get tired of telling.
It absolutely knocks my socks off
every single time, and I love it.
But it’s 150 people and the only way to
learn science is to do science, and science
involves measurement, it involves math.
And there’s absolutely no way around that,
and these are folks who don’t want to see math,
they don’t want to talk about measurement,
and it can be really hard.
It’s a lot of grading, it’s a lot of bookkeeping,
and when you have 150 students some fraction
of them get sick or they have a personal tragedy
or they don’t like me and they come and yell at me
or we end up talking about what the grade’s
going to be and redoing this and something
doesn’t work and the website goes down, and all
of the logistics can take some of the joy out of it.
What amazes me the most is that every time
I walk into a classroom and I think, “I’m tired,
you know, I can’t get up for this today.” I do.
Every single time, and every fall when I’m shaking
in my boots, and I’ve been teaching
for 10 years now, I’m shaking in my boots
walking into that classroom and I think,
“I’m not going to remember how to do this.”
It comes back to me the minute I walk in
that classroom every single time.
And I always walk in thinking “I probably
don’t have enough to talk about today.
I’ll let them go early.”
I think in 10 years I’ve never let a class go early.
And that’s what makes it great for me,
is the classroom, that environment, I love.
And I will be sad if the day comes that we decide
as an academic community that the classroom
has no role in education, because to me there are
magical things that happen in the classroom
that don’t happen any place else.
And some of my best ideas, some of the things that
have worked the greatest were improv, in the moment.
And I don’t know any other place like it.
Well, definitely trying new things.
I’m always trying new things, sometimes to keep
my enthusiasm running, a lot of times by necessity.
That’s not to say that it’s not a little
rough around the edges sometimes; it is,
and you know, experiments don’t always pan out.
But I think it gives me the sense that I’m down
in the trenches with the students, and when
it doesn’t work I’m just as bummed as they are
and I want them to learn, and when it works,
when I ask a hard question and a flood of right
answers comes back I mean that’s fantastic for me
because I’m right down there with them.
When my teaching gets not fun, when I know it’s
not effective is when I’m just doing something
I’ve already done, when I’m not really engaged,
so I keep myself engaged by trying new stuff.
I got Cs in physics as an undergrad, like more than one;
and at one point I had the lowest grade in the class.
And I got As in a lot of other stuff, and no one
would have blamed me for changing my major,
and I didn’t because I love physics in a way that
I never really loved anything else, and life is long,
you’ve got to do something you like.
I mean, I could teach people to do something else,
I could teach them how to make a pie or ride a bike
or something and I think I’d probably be
pretty good at that, but I couldn’t do it day in
and day out, I couldn’t sit up late grading exams
for that, because I’m just not passionate about it.