Episode 288 | John Heidenreich | Science and Chemistry Tutor | The EdisonOS Podcast

Episode Description

In this episode, John Heidenreich, a PhD chemist with 35 years in IT who returned to his passion for teaching, shares how a high school physics teacher transformed his life by explaining that "someone would pay me money to solve problems all day." Now teaching physics and chemistry at the French American School of New York while running his own tutoring business, John reveals his diagnostic approach to test-taking: analyzing why students miss questions and discovering most errors come from going too fast, not lack of knowledge. He shares the powerful story of a volleyball player who used her sports "happy dance" ritual to recover focus after a proctor incorrectly challenged her calculator mid-ACT—going on to score her highest ever. John discusses the challenge of getting students to do 100 repetitions when distractions constantly pull them away, his conversational classroom approach where he expects students to bring questions rather than memorized answers, and why he uses AI to generate multiple metaphors until one finally clicks. He emphasizes that anxiety doesn't need to disappear—students just need to learn what to do with it.