By Alec Lautanen
Editor-in-Chief
Not all teachers start off their lives knowing they want instruct students, but the ones that suddenly find a passion for the job are often just as caring and involved. Costa’s sole advanced physics teacher, Jonathan Lewis, is one of these individuals, and his serious dedication to physics and education runs deep.
Lewis didn’t start off his life with the drive to educate. Born in the United Kingdom, Lewis moved to Los Angeles at the age of three after his father became an aerospace engineer. The circumstances of his childhood seemed to dictate a job in the engineering field, a profession he pursued through college.
“My grandfather was a construction foreman, so when we purchased our first house we poured all our own concrete, we built all our own walls, we made our own patios,” Lewis said. “Anything that was electro-mechanical, we just did it. I don’t think we ever had a workman in our house just because, ‘why?’”
As his childhood progressed, Lewis was eventually introduced to more and more engineering-related topics, and his interest in the field grew.
“When I was 17 I got my first car,” Lewis said. “It was originally a crashed car, but I fixed it up, which made it function.”
In the classroom, Lewis often stresses common mechanical sense alongside traditional physics knowledge. Early in the year, students are tested on visually estimating measurements using scientific tools like inclinometers and proper graphing techniques.
“Because my father was an engineer, growing up we always had a garage full of tools and mechanical projects,” Lewis said. “I was always working on boats; we did all our own automotive work. I just grew up working with tools.”
Although admittedly not the best student in high school, Lewis settled on engineering and applied to UCLA’s School of Engineering. After being rejected from the engineering school, he enrolled in UCLA as an undeclared undergraduate student.
“I went in undeclared to UCLA, and after just a couple classes I was really interested in the physics courses I was taking, so I became a physics major,” Lewis said. “There was still a chance I was going to end up going into engineering, though.”
Unfortunately for Lewis (who graduated in 1988), engineering job prospects were dismal after the Cold War came to an end. Upon graduation, Lewis stumbled into the teaching profession by chance.
“My roommate was interviewing for an LAUSD teaching job and needed a ride,” Lewis said. “I just took a ride and went downtown. I interviewed just for the hell of it, and they hired me on the spot.”
Lewis’ first job was teaching highly gifted students at North Hollywood High School. While an instructor there, Lewis also coached the football team for three years.
After bouncing back and forth between a handful of other schools and summer programs, Lewis arrived at Mira Costa where he’s been for the last seven years teaching college preparatory, honors and Advanced Placement physics.
“I like the school here,” Lewis said. “The PTSA and the Ed Foundation have been really supportive of what I have been trying to do at Costa,” Lewis said. “When I first got here, the lab was antiquated and we didn’t have modern lab equipment.”
In his classes, Lewis strives to provide concrete, real-world examples of physics concepts to students through numerous labs and demonstrations. For example, Lewis teaches free fall by throwing tennis balls off Waller Stadium and circular motion through demonstrations with his home-built hovercraft.
“I can’t say enough how much I appreciate everything we do in our class,” senior AP Physics student Brady Currey said. “It’s really nice to have such helpful visual examples of the things we’re learning, especially with a subject that’s so conceptual at times.”
Outside of physics classes, Lewis has also taken on the role of coaching students at annual Northrup Grumman engineering challenges. Last year, Lewis’ team took first place with an automatically deployable sunshade meant for spacecraft. This year, the goal is to program an autonomous robot to navigate a field of various obstacles.
Students also know Lewis as an avid fan of the outdoors. Whether it’s running, biking or hiking, Lewis’ affinity for the natural world will extend to his students this May in the form of a four-day trip to Zion National Park.
“I thought I was only going to teach for a year or two and go do something else but I really enjoyed teaching,” Lewis said. “Teaching gives me a combination of optimal things, I really love it.”
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