Physics resources I’ve made
I was a high school physics teacher for 7 years and made a lot of resources for my course. My YouTube channel has animated lectures for every day of my 2 year IB physics course. I’ve organized all my class resources by topic here and by class day here. I also have them arranged in unit folders, and have a separate page for video lectures.
My background in physics
Before teaching physics I double majored in physics and philosophy at Clark University. I became interested in physics after having a great experience in a calculus course when I was 17. I focused a lot on climate and renewable energy during my major and still follow climate tech and policy from afar. In my philosophy major I focused on the philosophy and history of physics.
Physics resources I like
Books
The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Amazing social history of physics at the time.
YouTube channels
3Blue1Brown. The best math YouTuber. He made my favorite physics video.
Sabine Hossenfelder. Great for physics news, theoretical physics, and the connection between everyday physics issues and deep theories. Here she is on quantum hype.
Fermilab. One of the best explainers ever. I thought this video was perfect.
Podcasts
The Energy Gang. Great discussions of clean energy tech.
Internet resources
PhET Simulations. Great teaching resource
Construction Physics. A cool blog on how machines and buildings work.
Why I left teaching
There were a few big factors that pushed me away from teaching:
I was offered a role running the effective altruism org for Washington DC, which was a dream job for me with significantly better pay.
I had hit a firm limit on what I could be doing in the classroom. My classes were going well and I could basically repeat the same formula for another 40 years of teaching or branch out. I didn’t want to stagnate. There are not many ways to have an impact on education outside of the classroom. I believed that if I wanted to continue to influence physics education, my YouTube channel would impact more students than anything I could reasonably expect to do in education policy or management.
My school had become a bad place to work. We lost a lot of administrative talent during the pandemic and the people who replaced them made the professional environment much more hostile to teaching and learning. While I was still relatively comfy, many of my colleagues were treated very badly to the point that I wanted to leave.
The thing I miss most about teaching is getting to work with students day to day. I had a lot of genuinely life-changing experiences working with my students and am grateful every day for everything they brought to my classes.