High School Science

My son has done well in college--better by far than his father--and has a range of professional options open to him, including becoming a scientist or becoming a music teacher. He has decided against science as a career; he wants to be a high school music teacher. Why?

"Because," he told me, "I like the lifestyle. Mrs. Smith [a music instructor he knows] enjoys teaching high school, and she also plays in the symphony."

Mrs. Smith's lifestyle is attractive indeed: She teaches a subject she loves to students who are young and enthusiastic--and she does not have to give up her own musicianship! Science instructors, on the other hand--as my son points out--almost always give up doing science when they begin teaching it.

This is unfortunate. Surely the quantitative demands made upon one's time and energy by the concert stage and the research laboratory are not so different. Science teachers,...