Ms. Gallant Loves Physics, Literally!

National Teacher Appreciation Week is May 8 – 12, 2023.  This week you will hear some incredible stories behind some of our great-hearted teachers. Help us express gratitude and share your appreciation to the men and women who are making a daily impact on the lives of our scholars.

Molly Gallant is in her sixth year of teaching physics for Great Hearts at Chandler Preparatory Academy. “My school is amazing. It’s filled with the kind of people that I want to be more like,” said Gallant. “What’s really cool about being at Chandler prep is that I feel like I’m surrounded by people who are very inspired. I’m surrounded by people who are very professional. But really, I think I’m surrounded by people who have a joy and love for learning. It’s really contagious.”

Molly began her teaching career in 2017, after graduating from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Having grown up in Maryland, she was ready to get out of the cold, so when the opportunity came up for her to go to Arizona, she knew that was the place to be.

Teaching, however, was not initially on Molly’s radar when she was choosing her profession. Her degree is in mechanical engineering. Molly was exposed to classical education through some humanities courses she took in college. “They really profoundly challenged me to think about the way that I was educated,” said Gallant. “Even though my talents were leaning towards engineering, my soul wasn’t. It didn’t seem like something I wanted to spend a lot of my life doing.” She met some professors who mentioned a network of charter schools based out of Arizona called Great Hearts. “There was something within in me that really aligned with the purity of the mission of offering this classical education that is the best of whatever has been written or said in the Western canon. I really resonated with that.” She also resonated with Great Hearts’ mission in terms of its accessibility. “Reaching people in unexpected ways. It was something that I definitely wanted to be a part of.”

While in college, Molly was busy with school, swim team, and working as a TA (teaching assistant). “I realized that although I had a lot of gifts and talents that aligned with engineering, they also aligned with teaching. So, as I was starting to become disenchanted with a career in industry, I was really becoming aware that I had the ability to speak to students and help them feel confident in what they were learning and I thought, ‘Okay, this is something that brings me a lot more joy.’”

Although she was accepted into a PhD program for engineering education, She decided to instead follow her heart and head West to teach at Great Hearts. She knew she could come alongside the established mission of Great Hearts, joining a committed faculty that cared about liberal arts and cared about their students. “As much as I could learn from a PhD program on paper, I knew that I could learn more, and become a better teacher and a better person by immersing myself into a community like Great Hearts. I look back at that decision and I know that I made the right one.”

Molly also coaches high school swimming in the Fall and middle school swimming in the Spring. She swam year-round since the 7^th grade and competed in club swimming during high school and swam on her college team. “I just really love swimming.”

She credits her love of physics for motivation on tough teaching days. “Physics is absolutely beautiful. Today, I’m teaching my kids about why when you look at bubbles floating through the air, that you see this kind of iridescent rainbow prismatic effect on those soap bubbles. And to try and represent with mathematics something that you can see physically just represents a deep level of understanding to me. It’s not the only level of understanding but it represents a depth that I think we’re all kind of at our core. if we’re going to be deep inquirers, I think we all really need to explore and understand. So what’s neat about that is because I love physics so much, I love sharing it so much.”

“If I get to catch students by surprise, that’s my favorite thing. Sometimes they’ll come into class, and they are having a hard day… and sometimes the days just get monotonous. That’s when I get to come in and catch them off guard with something that is just really cool or something unexpected. Physics, because it’s weird, does some really unexpected things. I love catching them off guard with that and I also really love the fact that this thing that I’m teaching is universally related to everybody. Every single person has experienced physics because every single person has experienced falling, or standing, or seeing and so when you learn about how the world works, you just kind of learn about your place in the world, too. I think that’s what we do here is help ourselves and our students understand who they are in the broader context of a heritage that spans back thousands of years. I think teaching them who they are in their physical world is really important for them to understand who they are in their history.”

When she is not immersed in the world of teaching physics, Molly loves spending time outdoors with friends. “Kayaking is my favorite. My friends and I like to grab our kayaks and go down to Saguaro Lake. I just love being in the water and kayaking around. That’s so much fun.” Molly also admits being a bit of a boardgame nerd and is “weirdly obsessed” with competitive reality television.

“One of the reasons that I love working here is because we are committed to preserving the best kind of education for our kids. I just really love working with people who are so steady and who, at the end of the day, really want to provide the things that make us feel joy in life. We’re here because we love what we do. It’s such a strong kind of island in the educational landscape of Arizona and I’m really proud to work here.

Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts?  Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.