Deborah Armstrong is a fun teacher.

Armstrong is a physics teacher at Mineola High School, where she’s been teaching for 14 years. Armstrong is definitely aware that physics can be taught in a dry way, but she doesn’t feel that it has to be that way, which is what makes her fun:

“I’ve had ‘that’ physics teacher, that all we did (was) worksheets and math: and you’re not learning anything. You’re just memorizing. They call it chug and plug,” she said. “But (when kids) not just memorize it, but actually understand it, I think that’s the key.”

While one can be in the news for myriad reasons (not all of them pleasant), Armstrong has achieved her degree of public awareness for a positive reason, and one that’s well deserved. The long and short of it is, she loves what she does, she’s good at what she does, and people like her. In fact, she so loves teaching physics that she wants other physics teachers to be able to do it well, too – without breaking the bank. That’s why she’s taken great pains to widely disperse any resources she has.

“I’m trying to tell the teachers, you don’t need a $5,000 budget to be able to teach physics,” she said. “You could literally do it with the copy paper you have in the copy room, and go to Dollar Tree and buy some marbles…. Here’s (my instructions) and it’s all free of charge.”

In the era of Teachers Pay Teachers — an “Amazon-esque” site for educators where they can purchase and download instructions to other teachers’ self-created projects — why does Armstrong make everything available at no cost?

“If we can openly share everything for free, instead of me making a difference with a hundred kids… that’s (5,000) students I’ve just reached in one year,” she said.

Armstrong also passionately applies for teaching grants, opportunities, etc. This thirst for knowledge and new opportunities has led to many notable circumstances for her — and not boring, clinical ones, either. Picture studying sharks for part of a summer in the Bahamas, or traveling to Germany to teach on an all-expenses-paid trip. She has done both, as well as other opportunities.

In 2025, Armstrong has received another award/grant.

“Dear Deborah,” started the letter from PhysTEC, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition. “We are pleased to congratulate you on your selection as National 2025 PhysTEC Teacher of the Year!”

Armstrong, who receives “a lot of emails,” first thought it was spam when she received an email saying that she was being considered for the award. So, she deleted the email and forgot about it.

When her principal, Adam McMahon, received a letter stating that Armstrong had indeed received the nation-wide recognition, she began to understand that it was all legitimate.

“Honestly, I was shocked,” she said. “My first question was, ‘Who nominated me?’”

As it turns out, an unknown woman who saw Armstrong give a workshop at a conference nominated her for the award. A physics teacher in Texas herself, the teacher “wanted to do hands-on,” but, like many teachers, Armstrong says, noted that “I can’t afford to do all these projects.”

“She’s like, ‘I’ve been teaching for 10 years. I’m trying to figure out (how to do this) – I don’t have the budget,” said Armstrong about the woman.

Armstrong taught her, and about 100 other teachers during a CAST science conference, how to implement these hands-on projects at very little cost. 

“She was just like, ‘You’ve changed my life,’” said Armstrong. “She goes, ‘Now, with your stuff, I can do it.’”

So, the participant nominated Armstrong for National Teacher of the Year, and Armstrong won it. PhysTEC gives multiple teachers across the country a “Local Teacher of the Year” award every year, but there is only one annual national award.

“We look to Deborah’s story as a source of motivation for others to follow,” it reads. “We commend her on (her) work to increase physics enrollment through impactful course design.”

Along with the conferring of the award itself, Armstrong will also receive a $1,000 classroom grant to be used toward purchasing materials, and an all-expenses-paid trip to the annual American Association of Physics Teachers Meeting in Pasadena, Cal., where she will be asked to speak.

“Please accept our congratulations for all of your efforts in supporting Deborah and Deborah’s students,” writes PhysTEC. “This is a high honor, and Deborah is well deserving of it.”