Faculty members shadow students across campus

By Caroline Jacoby ’22
Faculty members have been shadowing students throughout the day. The program was designed last year and allows teachers to attend all of a student’s classes at the Middle School. Also, if the student rides the bus or has an after-school extracurricular activity, his or her faculty shadow may accompany the student there.  Students who wanted to be shadowed filled out a form, and adults answered questions in order to pair students with a shadow. 54 students volunteered, and 22 adults have been selected to shadow students this year. The majority of the shadow days will be completed before spring break.
According to Middle School Administrative Assistant Tim Smith, the goal is for all teaching faculty to shadow students during the next three years.
“The idea is for the adults to get a sense of the flow, demands and realities of a typical day [and] to give the adults a student perspective how a typical HW day goes for them. The response from both the students and the adults was positive, and [Head of Middle School Jon] Wimbish felt it was important to broaden the program, to allow for more people to participate [by continuing it],” Smith said.
Many participating teachers said they learned from the experience too, including math teacher Suzanne Halloran, who shared about her experience shadowing a student.
“I learned more about what a typical schedule is like for a typical student, and I saw some departments I really didn’t know anything about, like the P.E. department and the performing arts or music,” Halloran said.