The student-teacher program is a voluntary opportunity for teachers to walk a day in their life in students’ shoes.
On October 17, nine volunteer staff members shadowed students in their class schedule, essentially walking with them throughout all their classes and observing the classroom and school environment through the eyes of students.
Jessica Bantz, Instructional Technology Coordinator/English Teacher, was one of the organizers for this program.
“You know, we’re old, we don’t really know what it’s like to be a student in this day and age and generation, and to make sure that we’re doing the best that we can to support our students, the only real way to get in there is to be a student for a day.”
Teachers often joke about being old, and not relating to their students and their humor, but the student shadowing program is a way to remedy this gap of connection. As Metea is highly focused on representation and student equity, as well as truly understanding the unique perspectives of our culturally diverse student body, seeing this already being implemented in other schools was truly the beginning of Metea Valley’s own student shadow program.
Jessica Bantz believes that this program is important in understanding all students’ lives, and in adapting their classrooms.
“I think the biggest thing is making sure that we get a diverse perspective from teachers and students. So making sure that we’re thinking about all different avenues of the student experience, not just the most common one.”
For teachers, this program isn’t just about connecting with students for their personal, and school stressors, but also learning how to make the classroom more productive.
Mary Anne Zears, a social studies teacher, and one of the volunteers who took part in the student shadowing program, says that in just the short periods of observation, she has already learned a lot about nuances of student discipline, focus, and how they use their work time.
“I think what I’ve learned so far is that kids have so many distractions available. It’s the phone, the computer, conversations, things that are going on in their life at home, and outside of school,” Zears said. “So there’s a lot going on in a kid’s mind at any given point. And we always knew that, but it changes the perspective of how we can help kids kind of categorize their emotions and responsibilities to prioritize what needs to be done versus what can wait?”
Zears believes in not micromanaging independent work time and previously felt that helps students focus more and come up to her for questions if needed. However, from observing students, Zears recognized that students often get off-track if given too much time.
“I realized that kids just kind of can get off task because they have so much time to do it. Maybe a midway check-in, where I’m bringing them back together as a group, and check to see do you understand what we’re doing would be helpful,” said Zears.
Teachers putting themselves in the shoes of students truly makes them realize how instruction and class structure affect and promotes productivity among students, and many will take what they have learned and implement different structured style notes or assignment policies.
October 17 was the first day of the program in Metea, however, it will be continuing out the year, open to staff volunteers, on October 29, February 25, and 13. Their goal is to have 10 staff volunteer for these dates, as the administration will be assisting with getting substitutes to help with scheduling for those who do want to participate.
Zears says, “I think the most important thing is this really gives us an opportunity to teachers to understand what your day is like. And that there are kids from all different levels, all different abilities, all different backgrounds. So we’re kind of getting this broad spectrum of what our kids are going through, and I think that makes by reminding us that kids are humans too.”
