Good afternoon!

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my time teaching Math has, at least temporarily, come to an end. I loved teaching Math, and it is something I had been wanting to do for years, but the rapid transition at our command meant that over the course of just 9 short months I went from being the most junior person to being one of the most senior people, and finally moving on to teach “second-half.”

“First-half” and “Second-half” are common terms in Power School delineating the transition from the introductory subjects, Math, Physics, and Heat Transfer/Fluid Flow, and the more technical subjects, Reactor Principles, Specialized Instruction, and Chemistry/Materials/Radiation Fundamentals. This division between first- and second-half divisions is also the divider for officers who come to the school and teach the subjects. They will enter the school teaching a first-half subject because they are generally somewhat similar to courses we took while in college. Once we have gained some experience teaching and learned much more about the plant as a whole, we qualify to teach a second-half subject. Jackson and I both qualified to teach Reactor Principles (RP) and fully transitioned divisions back in August.

My First RP Section

Each class of students at Power School has a four-digit name. The first two digits come from the year they graduate, and the last two digits show the order of graduation. For example, the first class graduating in 2020 was called 2001 (pronounced Twenty - Oh - One). Each class is further broken into sections. The first section I taught in Math was 2001-02: the second section of the first class graduating in 2020. The last section I taught in Math was 2005-11: the eleventh section of the fifth class graduating in 2020.

Moving on to teaching RP I had the fantastic opportunity to continue to teach 2005-11, the very same section I had just finished teaching Math, and that was seriously a blessing. I didn’t have to worry about learning new names, for one, but the much more significant implications were that I had already built a strong rapport with the section and that they were fully aware that I was teaching RP for the first time. I knew from the first day of teaching them Math that I would probably end up being their RP instructor, but I managed to keep it a secret all the way until I walked in on the first day of RP. Surprising my students on that first day is a memory I will hold on to for a long time; it was so much fun to make that announcement, and when they cheered and clapped at the news I knew I was going to have a fantastic time with them.

The plant as a whole can be broken into several parts. You can focus on the controls and electronics side of things, which the Electricians and Reactor Operators do in their Specialized Instruction class. You can focus on the mechanical systems that actually do the work to keep coolant flowing through the reactor and steam flowing through the turbines, which is the focus for the Mechanics in their Specialized Instruction class. As you might guess, Reactor Principles focuses in on the core of the plant, the reactor itself. We cover everything from how we construct the reactor, to the relationships between water temperature, power production, and control rod height, to the physics principles and design considerations that we took into account when trying to find a way to measure the power output of the reactor. Toward the end of the course we talk about several nuclear disasters that have happened around the world, including Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island, and what we have learned from those accidents, how our design has improved as a result, and preventative actions we take to prevent similar accidents from happening in the future.

Sense of Wonder

Throughout the course, the section asked some seriously awesome questions. Many of the questions were very specific about how what we learned impacts operations in the fleet (which I certainly could not answer off the top of my head), so I always kept a binder on hand to write down questions and talk about them with more senior instructors in the division, especially those who had been out to sea in the past. Much more fun for me, though, were the really off-the-wall questions. A highlight that I recall from early on in the class came after we talked about how much power our reactor can output. A student raised his hand and said, “So, people naturally give off energy in the form of heat. How many people would you have to have in a room to be generating the same amount of heat energy as our reactor produces?” This is the type of question that I love. Does it have any relevance at all to what we are talking about? I mean, not really. Will it help the other students in the class perform better when they get to the fleet? Certainly not. But does it show that the student is really paying attention to what we are talking about, and is honestly thinking about it and curious about how to relate it to what he intuitively can understand in the world? YES! And throughout the course, I realized that this is very much the “sense of wonder” that was encouraged so much through high school at MacLaren. The desire to learn, not to get a higher grade on an exam, not because it will necessarily impact your day-to-day life, but the desire to learn just for learning’s sake. However ridiculous the question might sound, it is exactly that kind of questioning and thinking that has lead to amazing scientific discoveries.

I want to encourage this kind of questioning as much as I possibly can, so if you have any ideas for how I can do so please shoot them my way! I think a huge part of it is for me to show enthusiasm for the subject as the instructor. Fortunately, that one comes pretty easily. I am teaching students about nuclear reactors! How fricken cool is that?! How can I not be excited and share my excitement with them? I think another way I can do so moving forward is just keeping a little “Favorite Questions” journal so students can make their own little mark on history by getting their name and their question into my book. Maybe they will just think that is childish. I don’t really know. Sounds fun to me, though, and it sounds exactly like the trivial type of accomplishment that I would love to complete myself if I were a student, so it can’t be a terrible idea. So, congratulations to MMN3 Best for being the first entry in my Book of Wonderful Questions.

Fortunately, I think that I will get much more of the awesome questions in RP than I ever did in Math. The fact is that there are some students in power school who gave up on themselves learning math back in like 5th grade and, however much I try to encourage them and get them to realize how seriously cool math is, they just would not put in the effort needed to succeed, let alone be honestly curious about the subject. RP is pretty much the opposite. With almost zero exception, students have never been exposed to the material before. Students are excited to learn Reactor Principles because it is one of the defining features of being a Nuke in the Navy! So even from day 1, I get a head start on student engagement that I never had in Math.

Other Work Stuff

In addition to teaching RP, I am now the coordinator for Power Prep. Power Prep is a 2-week preparatory course for students who struggled in A-school that they take immediately before starting power school itself, and has its own curriculum that takes them through the basics of their introductory classes to give them a little head start on the material. I was excited to take on the additional duty because I had the opportunity to teach Power Prep Math a couple of times and loved the chance to spend some dedicated time with struggling students. As coordinator, I am not generally the one teaching them, but I still get to have face time with the students and encourage them, as well as get face time with potential Power Prep instructors and make sure they understand the purpose of Power Prep. I have several improvements I want to make to the Power Prep curriculum and process that I intend to work on, but first I need to actually finish my dang qualifications.

I have only one more mandatory qualification to do, and it is the same one I have been working on for literally a year, now. Other things just kept getting in the way, and then I was asked to stop working on it for a while to get qualified for RP, then I ended up teaching two sections of RP for a while which swallowed all of my time, and all in all I have had to get multiple significant extensions to the original deadline (which was back in October). I am frustrated with it because it seems entirely pointless but still sucks up an enormous amount of time, and now that I have had to get an extension I have people checking on my progress non-stop. Starting on Tuesday I am attacking it hard before anything else can get in the way, and I am taking the thing out with one final push. I still have about 30% of the qualification remaining, which is seriously disheartening considering the hundreds of hours I have put into it, but I am basically just suspending all non-essential tasks at this point until I have it done so people will get off my back about it. I probably come off rather bitter talking about it, and honestly, it is because I am. I am ready for it to be done, be in my past, and never ever talk about it again as long as I live unless I am in a position such that I could impact it being removed from existence so future instructors don’t have to feel my pain.

I will be starting a new section of RP on this coming Wednesday, and I am super excited to meet some new faces! It will be a bit tough for me since I have been teaching my most recent class for the previous 6 months and had built such strong relationships with the students, but I am sure these guys will be an awesome group of people as well.

Moving Forward

I will probably be teaching RP for at least another year. I could potentially teach it until I leave the command, but my hope is that at some point down the line I will either transition to being a division officer in A-school or return to Math as a senior instructor or division officer. I think one amazing opportunity that I have in the military is the ability to totally change my job every couple of years while still progressing upward in my career, and I intend to take full advantage of that. I look forward very much to continuing to learn more about reactor principles and be able to answer the amazing questions that students ask me, but I know eventually I will appreciate another change in pace.

After my nasty qualification is done, I also would like to work on a Master Training Specialist qualification. This is one of the better known Navy qualifications and can be transitioned to a civilian teaching certificate that would allow me to teach at middle/high schools, and even some universities, as well as expanding my opportunities while in the military. It is all about teaching methods and curriculum development, and it sounds like something I would love to learn more about. It is also not a required qualification, so I will be able to work on it in peace.

As of now, I definitely still intend to pursue a career in the Navy. We will see where that takes me and how I feel about it in a few years, but that is my thought for now. I would love to eventually teach at one of the military academies (especially the Air Force Academy), but that would be much later in my career and not likely possible for me to transition immediately after I stop teaching at Power School (though if it were possible, I would jump on the opportunity!). Hit me up if you have connections ;).

Final Thoughts and Memories

2005-11 was a wonderful section, and I wanted to record a few special memories so I can look back and remember what a great time I had teaching them all.

• MMN3 Best’s question about human heat generation compared to a nuclear reactor.
• MMN3 Barkley’s continued perseverance and effort in my classes, despite math and reactor principles being her worst subjects at the school.
• MMN3 Damico’s unending and excellent questions about operations in the fleet that I could not begin to answer, and unbelievable military bearing that made me look like a slouchy, disheveled middle schooler by comparison (and good luck to him in his application to the Naval Academy!)
• MMN3 Ison’s engagement and interest in the material despite struggling, and ending up passing the course precisely. As in, he would have failed if he lost one more point on any exam. Cutting it close, man.
• MMN3 Casey for getting nearly perfect scores on every exam (averaging over 99%), consistently managing to stay half a step ahead of his fellow high-performing classmates (in RP, at least). For reference, while I was qualifying for RP my average was ~90%.

As always, thank you very much for reading and for taking a few minutes out of your day to catch up with what I have been up to. I would love to hear how you have been and what has been going on in your life as well, so please do reach out whether through Facebook or email or text or whatever!

Until next time, I hope you all have a fantastic day.

-Christopher