Annika Bergin

Steven Crooks teaches during his AP Physics 1 class. Although Crooks is new to the teaching profession, his students believe he is doing an excellent job teaching all his AP Physics classes so far. “He is such a great teacher and I’m really glad he took over, so we could still have AP Physics,” said Angelina Costa ‘25.

When the AP Physics 1 and 2 classes at HB were left without a teacher at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, Steven Crooks came to the rescue. With limited experience teaching the AP Physics curriculum, he took on the challenge of teaching the three classes to save the AP Physics program at HB.

Crooks has never formally taught in a classroom, but he is well equipped for the job, thanks to his prior career experiences. While in graduate school, Crooks taught undergraduates as well as instructed new employees at former jobs. He was also a semi-long-term substitute at HB last year for a number of math classes. This experience, along with his extensive physics background, has helped him with his approach to teaching in a more formal setting.

“I studied physics as an undergraduate and a graduate student; that’s my formal educational training. After that, I did radar for about 10 years, so there was a lot of physics in that,” said Crooks. He has been able to draw from his past experiences while teaching both the AP Physics 1 and 2 classes. 

Despite being relatively new to teaching, Crooks’ students only have positive reviews, and his teaching style has greatly helped them comprehend the difficult subject matter. “[He’s] using curriculum from [Ms.] Leroij (former AP Physics teacher at HB) and previous teachers. He gets other teachers’ input on what he does and he takes a lot of student feedback,” said Angelina Costa ‘25, a current AP Physics 1 student. “He is a very fun guy and he is doing a pretty good job teaching physics for it being his first time being an AP Physics teacher in the high school, and he’s adapted pretty well,” added Addison Marchant ‘25, another AP Physics 1 student.  

Crooks’ enthusiastic attitude toward physics, as well as his passion for teaching, is already helping his students accel, and it is all thanks to him that the AP Physics program is still present at HB.