When I started teaching, it was in the Cleveland Public Schools in Ohio. I
had just graduated from Case Institute of Technology with a BS in Physics.
I had part of the courses to be certified to teach and had a guarantee from
Western Reserve University Teacher Ed Program that if I passed the night
courses I was taking the first semester then I would be completely
certified to teach. All that is another story...
Any how, I received a call from the Science Dept Chair of West Technical
HS. The was VERY concerned whether I had my degree from Case or Western
Reserve. (They had just merged, but I was in the last graduating class to
get a Case diploma.) Once he was satisfied that I was a real Case
graduate, he invited me for a visit and said they had an opening for a
physics teacher.
When I got there, he took me around and then informed me that one of his
Chemistry teachers (with one year's experience) and asked for the physics
slot and he had given it to him and that he wanted me to teach physical
science. I thanked him for the opportunity to visit and told him I would
think about it. One the bus back across town I decided I did not like the
basis for his decision and that I would reject the offer.
I called the Science Supervisor and told him that the guy from West Tech
would be asking for me but that I did not want the slot he had to offer.
He asked what did I want and I told him anything that was mostly teaching
physics. I became the physics teacher at East Tech HS.
As it turns out, there are few similarities between the two schools, but
that is another story.
I sure did not feel that the decision making process made sense then.
Since then I taught in the schools for 4 years, the last in rural Maryland
and now many years at the Univ. It still does not make sense.
OTOH, I have had the priviledge of working for some very intelligent
principals who in my opinion were making the best possible decisions they
could. Here in Idaho there have been and probably still are many who
taught science but were hired because they were willing to coach a sport.
Dewey
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
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