Charlie Matthews leans back in his seat and reflects, and he wonders what would have happened if on one Sunday afternoon nearly three decades ago, he hadn’t unfolded that edition of the New York Times.
“I had a path in mind, but education was not it until that New York Times ad that day,” said Matthews, a physics teacher at Park City High School.
Matthews was a mechanical engineer back then, dedicated to saving the world through solar power. But on that Sunday, he recalls, the New York Times ran a full-page ad offering free tuition for a Master’s degree for people with certain qualifications — including engineers — if they’d agree to teach for five years in the New York state public education system.
For Matthews, who was seeing the solar-power industry dry up around him, it was an alluring proposition.
“I said, ‘I’ll try five years of teaching, and if I don’t like it, I’ll go back to engineering,'” he said. “Well, here I am in my 29th year of teaching. Obviously, I never went back to engineering. It’s definitely a different trajectory than I would have experienced if I would have stayed in engineering.”
Though he had never even considered teaching until he saw the ad, he quickly found that it suited him — and that he was meant to be in the classroom. He had been stuck behind a desk, isolated from other people, as an engineer, but the human interaction he found in the classroom was energizing.
“The skills you use in engineering are really some of the same ones you use in trying to teach kids,” Matthews said. “But you have that added variable of dealing with humans, and I found that really intriguing. I’ve always enjoyed problem-solving, but I also enjoy communicating with people.”
Matthews moved to Park City in 1992 and devoted himself to building up Park City High School’s small physics department. That he has helped transform it into one he considers among the best in the country is one of the most satisfying accomplishments of his career.
“When I came, there was only one physics class with 12 kids, and I was brought in to build a physics program,” he said. “Now, at Park City High School, we’ve got well over 250 kids taking some physics class. I’ve felt proud of being a part of that. We’re truly able to take kids and help them not just learn college-level physics, but enjoy it. That helps guarantee their success in science-related majors in college.”
Matthews has also been involved in the district’s Park City Center for Advanced Professional Studies program, as well as the high school’s robotics club. He said it’s been exciting to be involved in those hands-on, project-based learning ventures while still maintaining the quality of the physics program in the classroom.
“The two need to go hand-in-hand,” he said of traditional learning and project-based methods. “That’s what I’ve really enjoyed in my place, in my career right now, is I get to be involved in both. It’s a pretty interesting place that I couldn’t have predicted.”
Nearing retirement in the upcoming years, Matthews wonders about his legacy as a teacher. He has seen countless students go on to successful careers and he hopes that’s what he’s remembered for.
“I want students to go out and do something not only important for themselves but important for society.”