*The following paragraph will be enhanced if its reading is accompanied by the appropriate music*

The shadows dance across the deck of the Arch-Engineer’s chambers as the imperial elevator’s hydraulics hiss to a stop. As the doors open, the glow of a nearby dying star pierces into the chamber, filling the room with a weak red light that flicks against the large cylindrical tank in the center of the room. A trembling guard stumbles forward into the chamber and weakly beats his palm across his breastplate in the empire’s signature salute, facing the horrifying creature suspended in the electric-blue slime. The nameless soldier maintains his position, wanting nothing more than to run for his life as steam slowly begins to fill the room, creeping around the edges of the cylinder as its contents drain into the floor’s chamber.

The horrifying marriage of machine and man shudders momentarily, seemingly disoriented by the sudden lack of mind-enhancing chemicals entering its respiratory system. The nightmarish torso in the tank turns itself to face the summon “Speak.” It commands. “M-my liege” says the guard, his hand visibly quivering against his breastplate, “We have located the enemy’s assault crafts. The assassination plot is now underway, as was expected. The alliance’s invasion force will be arriving in a number of hours.” The Imperial Arch-Engineer exhales deeply before responding. “Excellent”. He hisses. “Alert the Fleet Admiral to deploy the tractor beams from our cloaked ships in sector IV. As long as the applied force starts out weak, those alliance dogs won’t realize that we’re pulling them off course until after it’s already too late.”

The guard shudders. “But sir, how can we be certain that their ships will be pulled off course?” The Arch-Engineer lets out a frustrated hiss before responding. “The applied force of their ships’ thrusters is sending them to this location as we speak. However, once a second force has been added, their resultant direction will be changed. If my calculations are correct, they’ll be pulled off course before making the jump to hyperspace, sending them directly into our imperial ambush.”  “Leave me.” The monster said, speaking once more. “If I am to be certain that my calculations are absolute, I will require absolute silence. Do not distract me again.”. The Arch-Engineer turned around once more to speak to the guard, immediately realizing that he had ran away long ago. The Arch-Engineer probably would have smiled if he could have. Today was going to be a glorious day for the empire.

Imagine learning about vector addition this way. Not as a student in a classroom listening to a guy who doesn’t get paid enough to care about his job talk about trigonometry, not as an athlete trying to sum the forces on a ping pong ball, but as an imperial guard on board the intergalactic star destroyer, listening to the cyborg monster Arch-Engineer explain his calculations that will certainly lead to the Alliance’s destruction. in education, context matters. If she fails, the student in class might get a B on the upcoming exam. If he fails, the athlete might overshoot his table tennis serve. But, if the Arch-Engineer fails, the Alliance will be successful in their attempt to assassinate the Viceroy, destabilizing the empire’s diplomatic power and threatening to send the entire galaxy into a brutal, bloody war for control.

A truly exemplary teacher understands context. Context is the difference between intergalactic war and drawing lines on paper with a protractor. Context is the difference between two people touching their lips together and true lovers kissing for the first time. Context is the difference between a student who cares and a student who doesn’t. In order to become an exemplary teacher of the universe’s most awesome subject, we must first become masters of context. “Aesa, how do I become a master of context?” I hear you rhetorically asking me in order to help me segway into the next part of this paragraph. I’m glad you asked! Come with me, and I’ll show you some wonderful and creative ways to become a teacher of cosmic proportions!

Reality:

How many times have you asked yourself this question in a classroom: “When am I ever, EVER going to use this information in real life?” Most people would probably say “several”. There’s often a degree of separation between what we learn in school and real life. In history, we learn to memorize names and dates relevant to things that happened a long time ago. In math, we talk about equations and theorems that exist in abstract space. And, indeed, in science, we talk about microscopic organisms with ridiculous names like these guys:

How do we remove this abstraction?

• Make the unreal real:
  For some subjects, this seems impossible, but the only thing stopping you is the creativity of your own mind. Trying to teach about the graphing of equations in calculus? Have your kids make a batman symbol. Trying to explain the deep symbolism of 1984? Have your students draw pictures capturing the essence of the book. Heck, you can even dress up like Isaac Newton to explain the laws of motion. Abstraction is a human concept, and as one, it can be dispelled, given the sufficient effort.
  
• Use examples and demonstrations:
  Don’t just talk about the reaction of mercury with aluminum. Show a video like this one. You know what’s even better than that? Get some mercury and aluminum and watch the sparks fly for yourself. Your students will get to witness the reaction with their own eyes, smell the burn with their own noses. Bring education into the classroom. These are the moments your students will remember.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrdYueB9pY4
• Embrace The moment
  The entropic nature of the universe can often play to your advantage. When the eclipse comes, will you gather your students to witness a once-in-a-lifetime marvel of science, or will you stay focused on the content you’re supposed to be teaching? An exemplary teacher can create ways to connect special real-world events to the learning at hand. Students will remember these things!
  https://www.ksl.com/?sid=45686802&nid=1288

Control:

Science can’t be something that happens to you: It needs to be something that happens because of you. Sure, Einstein observed the consistency of light’s speed, but he didn’t truly understand it until he sat down and derived the equations to explain this phenomenon. Likewise, in our classrooms, we need to ensure that our students are DOING science, not just OBSERVING it.

How do we get our students to DO science?

• Let them loose to explore:
  When your students do something on their own, they have the power to make it theirs. Will your kids remember doing a worksheet on air pressure? Of course not. Will they remember coming up with an idea about how to launch a golf ball through a steel plate using air pressure? Absolutely. Giving your students the power to come up with ideas on their own gives them control over their own learning. They can create their own context with them as the star.
  
• Let them own their learning:
  Another great way to have your students do science is to let them place the subject into a context specific to them. Is one of your students an aspiring musician? Let them write a song about volcanic eruptions. Is one of them really into interpretive dance? Try adding a physical activity in which students act out moving tectonic plates during an earthquake. Move the learning to contexts that your students understand and are passionate about.
  So, do you have what it takes to be a master of context? Will you make the boring exciting? Will you give your students the freedom to turn their normal schooldays into lifelong learning opportunities? For the low, low, price of 0.00$, you too can learn to manipulate context and foster dreams!