On the joys of physics, werewolves, dad duty and the brutal murder of giant grasshoppers

All right, this is the first of the series so just be cool.

“OK. Uh, I’ll try.”

You have a fun name. Do people ever make fun of you for it?

“More the Luke than the Esposito. I’m happy if people can call me whatever they—wait … I shouldn’t say that or people are going to start—ah, Mr. E is fine.”

What are you teaching this year? How long have you been teaching?  And why do you teach?

“Honors and gifted physics, and then AP 1 and AP 2.This will be my 16th year. And because, let’s see. I gotta get the wording right … because teaching and education is the silver bullet that will slay the werewolf of ignorance. That’s it.”

You put a lot of thought into that…

“Yes! But I think that sums it up nicely. I guess what I mean is that, by educating people, you solve so many of society’s problems. Too many people act on preconceived notions and traditional mindsets. They do what their parents did that their parents did that their parents did.”

Did you always want to be a physics teacher?

“When I was little, I didn’t quite figure how things work, … and I wanted to be an alligator.”

Well, what do you hope to accomplish while you’re teaching here at Grady?

“There’s already a fantastic physics program in place, but I’m still trying to get a mental sense of all the different materials that are available. Then offering something new but keeping in the prior tradition of high performance. A lot of students are going on to higher education and past that, so it’s very important that we prepare them as best we can … because one of them might be operating on me one day!”

As a teacher, what are you most proud of?

“I can’t count how many people say, ‘Oh, I hated my physics class,’ or, ‘I hated physics,’ or ‘It was too hard.’ And I understand that because I had difficulties too! A lot of concepts are more difficult to get your head around. Some people are happy with their comfort zones, and they don’t push themselves. We go through our daily lives with very simple answers to our simple questions, right? Where do I eat? How do I go from here to there? But when you choose to take a step outside … it can be complicated, especially if it’s something that’s new. But the neat thing is that, once you wade through that complication, you start to see simplicity again. How was that?”

That was cool, man! So, where did you teach before?

“Eastern North Carolina. It was a smaller high school, Greene Central. But I started the AP program there, and that was fun. It wasn’t all physics; some of the time I taught physical science, earth science, I had to teach one semester of biology. I’d teach forensics. I wore a lot of hats.”

And how was your transition to Grady?

“It was AWESOME. Be sure to put all capital letters throughout the word. There’s a lot of chance for experimenting and trying new things and stuff that was only in my head or I had heard about. Plus, I need to get a handle on all the apparatus back there. Mr. Cramer has a lot of stuff!”

Yeah, that closet is a labyrinth. How do you get along with the other teachers here?

“Good! Everyone has been very, very welcoming and supportive. I feel like I ask too many questions, but they are at least hiding their exasperation really well!”

What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened in one of your classes?

“Aw, man…. that can be published in your school newspaper?”

Let’s keep it PG-13.

“Yeah yeah, all right. My first few years of teaching, I taught eighth-grade science. There were praying mantis eggs all over the place, so a kid brought in a praying mantis. We had an aquarium all set up; it was great. So during my planning period, I would go out to the grassy parking lot, and I had a net to catch grasshoppers. And we would feed them to the praying mantis. Everything was fine: we had fed it, everything was good, but I found a really big grasshopper this one time and, … I didn’t know what was going to happen. So the last class dropped this big honkin’ grasshopper in the cage, and the praying mantis tackled this one a little differently. So, the mantis grabbed it and like immediately chewed off its head. All my kids were watching, and they were like AUUGH and some were like WOW!! So I was like … how do I change this graphic scene in front of them into a teachable moment?”

Oh, brutal! All right, we’ve done crazy. How about a fond memory?

“Let’s see, there’s a couple: when kids come back after years and say they still remember some of the things they learned, that happens from time to time. Then, there was a kid who I taught as a freshman and then as a junior, and he had challenges but wasn’t officially signed up for help and assistance. We worked through it, and we got him through physical science, and he said ‘I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I had anybody else as my teacher.’ I felt I was in the right place at the right time for the right person.”

Can you tell me some of your goals for the upcoming years?

“Just to do my best, make sure kids are prepared for physics, keep doing well on their tests, stuff like that. I guess those aren’t very exciting goals. I dunno. Make a big laser out the front of the school! No, we can’t do that. Shoot the moon, carve our initials in the moon! Nah, we can’t do that. So yeah, just do a good job teaching what I teach. How’s that? Can we put that?”

‘Do a good job teaching what I teach…?’

“That’s right. When my wife’s grandfather came to town before we were married, [that was] the first time he had met me, and everybody was like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ ya know, cause he’s old. So we went to dinner, and he patted me on the back and said, ‘You did a good job,’ at the end of the night, and everybody still to this day does not know what he meant by that. So, to do a good job … even though I don’t know what that means.”

Some of your students describe you as very enthusiastic…

  “YEAH!”

How would you respond to that?

“With a big capital ‘YEAH!’ with an exclamation point!”

Yeah?

“Yeah, that’s part of the big pet peeve I have where people hate their physics class. You know, I get it, but I don’t wanna be a part of that. I’m teaching kids so that when people mention physics now, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I loved my physics class,’ instead of, ‘Oh, I hated physics.’”

Any advice for those students?

“Treat failure as a learning opportunity. A lot of people like others to think they don’t fail, but everybody does. It’s how you deal with that failure that helps define your character.”

Who are the most important people in your life?

Wait, maybe that’s kind of a mean question.

“Yeah … When you guys grow up and get a family of your own, that’s really incredibly freeing. So my wife and kids, my dog, that’s great stuff. Your parents or guardians? You can’t really do much about that. But your family, you have a chance to do something special. When you raise kids that other people like, that’s very cool.”

What do you do with your free time?

“I have dad duty mostly. My wife works too. She’s at Emory, so she and I sorta tag team. We have two daughters, and they’re both in school and active after school. As hard a time as I have trying to keep up with things here, it’s just that much crazier [at home]. My eldest daughter, she likes to sing and dance and act, loves drama. She’s been in a couple kids’ plays. She’s 9, and then I have a 7-year-old. She likes video games, superheroes, comic books. Both of them love to read. We just got done with The Hobbit. She loves that he takes comfort in food whenever he’s stressed out. She just thought that was the funniest thing.”

Favorite food?

“Fettuccini alfredo.”

Alright, so what do you …

“No, I can keep going! … with broccoli and bacon and peas. Cheese. Bread. Bread good. Mmmmm.”

What words do you live by?

“Mark Twain once said the best advice to give people is none. And that’s what comes to mind right now. … I probably misquoted that terribly.”

Anything else you want to add?

“Did I talk enough?”