COMM U N I T Y
BY:CALLIE COLLINS
Ro cking Science
Geophysicist Turned Teacher Takes Education Personally
D
avid Askey is a geophysicist, trained to explore the dynamic mysteries of the Earth’s subsurface. For a guy who loves math and science, what job could be more interesting than that? Well, for Askey, it was standing in a classroom everyday talking to high school kids about rocketry, robotics, periodic tables and the love of physics and chemistry.
istry classes, he teaches rocketry, with an aerospace engineer and rocketry expert from Tinker Air Force Base, and he sponsors Norman High’s advanced robotics after school program. Askey says teaching is what gets him up in the morning because he has a passion for inspiring kids and showing the practical side of the material.
troversy of the day… music is always blaring in the background. I am in my element when I’m surrounded by all that youthful energy,” said Askey. “I need it these days since I just turned 60. I’m starting to wear down, but they keep me young.” “I spend about 75 hours a week working with students, revising my curriculum, writing and grading tests or packets or notebooks or writing rec-
“Teaching is not really a job, more of a way of life.”
Askey says he tried to be a geophysicist once, but it just wasn’t inspiring. “Buying a sports car and living in a nice apartment with nice furniture and eating at all the fine Dallas restaurants didn’t do it for me like I thought it would,” he said. For him, teaching teens was far more interesting than studying rocks. “Tutoring local kids became my focus, and I finally decided to try my hand at teaching for real,” Askey said the never-ending challenge of changing lives has become his happy obsession for the last 34 years, and he has never looked back. In addition to his physics and chem30 | January 2020
The results are tangible, he says, pointing to his advanced robotics program, which has won the Robotics World Championship three times over the past 20 years. Honors like world championships speak for themselves, but the atmosphere Askey has helped create at Norman High has made a difference for students. “I sponsor ping pong tournaments, foosball tournaments, chess tournaments. My favorite time of the day is lunch. My room - the students call it ‘the 807’ - is always packed at lunch. It’s constantly full of kids working on bots, rockets, playing chess, foosball or ping pong, eating from our Physics Cantina, working on physics problems on the board, debating the con-
ommendations,” said Askey. “I’m not complaining. Teaching is not really a job, more of a way of life.” “I have a very patient wife. I usually bring her coffee and muffins in bed on weekends, but last year, I started meeting my students at Stella Nova coffee shop on Saturday mornings from 5:30 a.m. to noon,” Askey said. “On average, about 50 students show up off and on during the help session, but we have had up to 65 on Saturdays before a big exam. We used to meet every Saturday, but now, we just meet on the Saturdays before a test, about once every three weeks.” This year, the group meets from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., which is “more civilized,” Askey says. He noticed at a recent meet-up that students were
