Is becoming a math/gym teacher a realistic career goal for researching?

[Seimron]

Just wondering what you guys thought about my career plan. I plan to major in either education math or physical education and become a math/gym teacher. I figure all of the time off(summer) will allow me to do research; but I just wanted to see how realistic is that goal. I originally wanted to go into academia but, with all of the stories and statistics, I'm 99% sure that it isn't for me. My passion for math(so far) is still strong and I've been wondering if Academia is the only way to still help the field/do research.

 

[holomorphic]

Just wondering what you guys thought about my career plan. I plan to major in either education math or physical education and become a math/gym teacher. I figure all of the time off(summer) will allow me to do research; but I just wanted to see how realistic is that goal. I originally wanted to go into academia but, with all of the stories and statistics, I'm 99% sure that it isn't for me. My passion for math(so far) is still strong and I've been wondering if Academia is the only way to still help the field/do research.

First let me say that I don't mean to naysay your plan. It is good that you are able to speak frankly about your hopes and fears.

Now, let me make an observation: I have never known or heard of a gym teacher who was an active researcher in math, let alone a high school math teacher who was an active researcher. I suspect there might be a math teacher out there somewhere who does research--but I haven't heard of him.

Part of the reason is that there is little opportunity for such people to learn about what is going on in contemporary math. But mostly it is probably because 1) there is little time for such a person to learn the necessary math, and 2) there is little true incentive for it. Your employer would be perplexed by such aspirations, in fact, since they have nothing to do with your duties as a gym or math teacher.

My suggestion is to major in computer science and take as many math classes as you can--or double major in math/CS. Get a PhD in CS. You'll likely be employable, and you will have had time to digest a lot of math topics.

That is all predicated on your continued interest, of course. You may end up taking courses that discourage you from going further; or you may find yourself interested in something else entirely; or you may hear one too many negative statements about your plan.

TL;DR? Bottom line: if you are truly interested in math, becoming a math/gym teacher is not the way to get involved.

 

[holomorphic]

I plan to major in either education math or physical education...

Let me add that, though there are definitely skilled education or "math education" majors out there, I do not personally know any who I would want teaching my children math. They're out there, I've just never met them.

 

[Delong]

One of my teachers in middles school was a very smart math and computer programming teacher who often took students out on runs for like Cross country. I don't know if that sounds like your thing or not but it reminded me of him. I don't know how much he contributed to the field of math though.

 

[holomorphic]

One of my teachers in middles school was a very smart math and computer programming teacher who often took students out on runs for like Cross country. I don't know if that sounds like your thing or not but it reminded me of him. I don't know how much he contributed to the field of math though.

Delong, do you happen to know what his undergraduate degree was in?

 

[symbolipoint]

Sure what you want to do is possible if you have at least a degree in one of those suitable subjects and enough qualifying course credit in the other subject. Also as indicated from other posters, you might not have much opportunity for Math research.

"Gym Teacher" involves human health, human performance, and therefore can include the understanding and use of Statistics. As an athletic or p.e. teacher, you might want to gather data about your students over several years and examine them for some selected cause-effect relationship, if not an actual mechanism. Mathematical capability is a very good thing to have.

 

[holomorphic]

As an athletic or p.e. teacher, you might want to gather data about your students over several years and examine them for some selected cause-effect relationship, if not an actual mechanism.

You would need parental permission to gather such data, and they would probably consider it more than a little weird for a teacher to do this. My instinct tells me very few schools would be interested in having a physical education teacher who does this. At the end of the day, you would probably not find this a rewarding experience, either.

 

[Delong]

Delong, do you happen to know what his undergraduate degree was in?

My old teacher wrote:
"I started off majoring in mathematics and computer programming, but
decided to become a teacher after the first two years of school.
I earned a BA in liberal studies with a minor in psychology at San Jose
State University. I also earned an MA from the University of California
at Berkeley. "

 

[twofish-quant]

You would need parental permission to gather such data, and they would probably consider it more than a little weird for a teacher to do this.

Not just parental permission. The amount of bureaucracy that you need in order to create a publishable human study is unreal (and unfortunately necessary).

If you do a study involving children, you'll need an approval from an institutional review board. If you haven't set up an IRB, and the Feds catch you doing human studies, the school district could lose their federal funding.

It's a crazy system, but one thing that they teach you when they make you do human studies training is "here are the horrible things that happened that caused us to create this system." Here is a example. Let suppose you perform treatment X, and you find out that people in group X are doing a lot worse than people that don't. At this point you have a major ethical dilemma because if you stop treating people with X, you don't know if it's a real effect, but if you don't, then you may end up with a kid being a grade level behind.

Universities with teaching schools have committees (IRB's) that discuss these issues. They will have a meeting to figure out if the results of the experiment are worth the risks, and with kids, the answer is usually no.

Also I know this stuff because my wife has a Ph.D. in education, and trying to put together a valid education study is *really* hard and the type of stuff that they teach you in education grad school. Also as with physics, some people that are excellent education researchers make horrible classroom teachers and vice versa.

If you want the full chapter and verse...

http://answers.hhs.gov/ohrp/categories/1570

 

[twofish-quant]

Let me add that, though there are definitely skilled education or "math education" majors out there, I do not personally know any who I would want teaching my children math. They're out there, I've just never met them.

I know a lot of them. One thing that East Asia is strong at is having a system that produces good elementary math teachers.

Curiously I don't know of anyone that makes both great elementary school math teacher and a great mathematician. The two skills are just too different.

 

[physics girl phd]

I figure all of the time off(summer) will allow me to do research; ...and I've been wondering if Academia is the only way to still help the field/do research.

I will note here that your BEST chances for this plan will be if you take a teaching position in an area near a national lab or other large research facility.

I started out as a physics/chem teacher (though with a very strong grad-school oriented undergraduate degree), but then was guided to a summer position through the AIR Force Research Labs -- by the husband of another teacher in the school who was then the "Head of the Sensors Directorate" and I ended up working for a group within this larger mission. It might have been difficult to find such a position without some community connection.

But -- To make a long story short, I didn't return to teaching the next year... the Air Force job was better paid, and it was easier -- at the time I was only 5 years older than some of the high school students, so they were constantly trying to push my disciplinary procedures (which was annoying)... and I didn't have good support from my high school during my year of teaching, which had lost its science department head the summer before right as new facilities were being built (and they weren't completed, so I taught chemistry and physics in the "old gym," which was great for the classical mechanics units of physics, but horrid for chemistry).