Physics teacher Mr. Jonathan Gadoua celebrates 30 years at Choate.
By Eric Dubbelde ’26
From physics teacher to basketball coach and House Mentor, Mr. Jonathan Gadoua has contributed to the Choate community in many ways since 1994.
In his 30 years at Choate, Mr. Gadoua has taught all non-astrophysical courses in physics, primarily levels 200, 250, and 650.
Kay Lee ’25, who is in Mr. Gadoua’s Physics 650 class, enjoys his humor in the classroom. “He tells a lot of funny stories,” she said. “He’s one of those teachers who’s good at integrating personal stories that are relevant to the topic we’re learning.”
Lee also appreciates how Mr. Gadoua infuses his creativity into his problems. Instead of the typical rocket or tennis ball as objects in projectile motion, he makes himself the subject of his questions. “Physics can be challenging sometimes, so when the problem is funny, it makes it fun,” she said.
He loves “geeking out” with his 650-level students as much as teaching third-formers in Physics 200 and 250. “I think every kid is curious,” he said.
He described his younger students as “equally or even more excited” to learn than their older counterparts. He is often amazed by his third- and fourth-form students’ grasp of complicated topics, as well as their high level of motivation and curiosity.
Upon his arrival to Choate, Mr. Gadoua also began coaching Boys’ Thirds Basketball, a position he went on to hold for 25 years. Even now, he still looks back fondly on the time he spent with the team. Although he stepped away from coaching during the pandemic, Mr. Gaduoa is still involved in sports on campus by helping keep score at Boys’ Thirds Basketball games and timing meets for the Track & Field teams.
Mr. Gadoua also served as a House Mentor in Hill House before it turned from a boys’ dorm to a co-ed dorm in 2021. “I miss the camaraderie,” Mr. Gadoua said. “That was just something that made a boarding school really special.”
One of his favorite memories in the dorm was when the prefects played a light-hearted prank on their prefectees by hiding behind doors. It soon became an ongoing activity, with prefectees attempting to scare their prefects in the same way. For the following month, Mr. Gadoua developed a fear of entering his own apartment lest there be kids lying in ambush behind the door.
Even so, he appreciated the time spent with the dorm residents. Whether it was the scaring contest or late-night heart-to-heart conversations, “I knew them as people,” he said.
After meeting students from all around the world at Choate, Mr. Gadoua hopes to spend some time traveling in the future: perhaps to the Happiest Place on Earth.
Carson Ling ’24, one of his prior students, said, “Mr. Gadoua often talked about how he loved Disneyland and how he wanted to visit every Disneyland in the world.”
For now, he will continue teaching the Three Laws of Motion and the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, or as he put it, “just taking it year by year.”
