Caitlin Hussey '10: education and physics
November 17 2008
Caitlin Hussey '10 during her Field Work Term internship at the Little Shop of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
"We are all standing behind a giant Van de Graff generator," Caitlin says. "We are holding fluorescent light bulb tubes, and they are lighting up because of the electricity in the air from the generator."
"Physics was my favorite class in high school; I just loved it. But I wasn't interested in a career in research. When I was really young, I had thought about being a teacher, and the two—teaching and physics—seemed to fit together well. A big part of the reason I came to Bennington was the five-year Masters in Teaching program [the BA/MAT program, which allows students to get both their Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Teaching in five years].
"[Physics faculty member] Jason [Zimba] is all about alternative methods of teaching and moving away from rote learning. He wants students to get a feeling for what they're doing and understand why they're doing it, and the way he taught the subject was really interesting to me.
"For example, there's a fundamental law called Bernoulli's Principle, which basically says that if you have something that's moving at a certain speed—like water moving through a pipe—if you narrow the pipe, the water moves faster, because the pressure changes. In my Kinetics and Motion class, instead of just saying ‘Here's Bernoulli's Principle,' and stopping there, he came in one day and said, ‘You know, I've never read about anybody doing work on the necking-down effect and how it's different in a viscous liquid versus water. Would you be interested in doing something on that?'
“Jason is all about alternative methods of teaching....”
"So we sat down and brainstormed how to collect data and analyze it, and he walked us through a whole research experiment. It showed me how much more students can get out of a lab component than what I'd previously been offered. As I take science classes, I'm taking mental notes of how these classes are being taught and what works well and what doesn't and why.
"My last [Field Work Term] internship was awesome. I don't know how I'm going to top it this year. I worked at the Little Shop of Physics, which is part of the physics program at Colorado State University. What they do is build physics experiments and hands-on activities for kids, out of everyday objects, to teach basic physical principles and laws. For example, it might be as basic as cardboard housing around a little red laser, with lenses that kids can put in front of the laser to see how the light bends and moves.
“Sometimes kids would mix three or four projects together and do something new with it, and say, ‘Wow, look at this!’”
"We would travel to schools in the area, set up, and let the kids play. We'd be around to do demonstrations and answer questions. It was such a great experience to see the different ways that students learn. Some students would read the whole instruction sheet before playing with it, and be very methodical and deliberate. Other students would just pick things up and go crazy with it. And sometimes kids would mix three or four projects together and do something new with it, and say, ‘Wow, look at this!' And we really encouraged that.
"I think of the high school physics teacher I had, who just made the class so interesting and fun. I want to be able to do that for other students—to show them that there's something out there for you, and you should find it and just get everything you can out of it."
Caitlin's Field Work Terms:
- First year: Teacher's assistant, Kents Hill School, Kents Hill, ME.
- Second year: Little Shop of Physics at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO.
Highlights from Caitlin's classes at Bennington:
"My first year at Bennington, I branched out and did a bunch of things across the board—pottery, music classes, metal shop—just to make sure that teaching was what I really wanted to do. But I actually took a lot of physics. My first term I took astronomy, and my second term I took Space Time and Relativity and The Physics of Sound. Later I went on to Physics I and II and more advanced classes."
- Teaching and Learning, with Bryan Duff. "This was a great introduction to teaching, because it was all about pedagogy and the ideas behind teaching. We read famous educators like Gardner and Dewey, and took field trips to visit specific types of schools. We visited a Montessori school and a KIPP [Knowledge is Power Program] school, which are very different from each other, but both very effective at what they do. Comparing them was a good experience."
- Real Analysis, with Andrew McIntyre. "Real Analysis is what you take after calculus. It was incredibly difficult and so much work, but that's what was so beneficial. I'm usually good at math and science, so to be put in that position was really good for me-to be pushed to my limits, to know how my students will feel if they don't understand something."
- Traditional Music of North America, with John Kirk. "After that class, I got a guitar and kept up with it on my own. It started my interest in traditional music and playing my own music."
Caitlin's other activities at Bennington:
- Intramurals Coordinator and playing on the soccer team. "I've always been an athletic person, and I wanted to think of different ways to get people interested in athletics at Bennington."
- House Chair for Noyes House. Each campus house has two house chairs, who facilitate community life and help with day-to-day issues, like adjusting to college and living with a roommate. "I love this house and the people in it, and I really wanted to bring the community together even more."
- Student Educational Policies Committee (SEPC) representative. SEPC representatives, who are elected by the student body, bring a student perspective to educational policy at Bennington. Caitlin is one of the representatives for the Center for Creative Teaching.