As students make their way through the hallways at SHS some may worry about their classes and the assignments they are given throughout a school day. Spanish teacher Christine Powell had the opportunity to see different classrooms from a new perspective. Instead of being in front of the class and teaching she was sitting alongside students as other teachers taught.

“It was a really good experience just to see what the education is like from the perspective of the student,” Powell said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been a student.”

Principal Brian Knight decided upon the idea of having teachers “shadow” students for a day to see what it’s like being a student.

“Every teacher in our contract gets a school visitation day that they can take to visit another school and they took that day to visit (SHS),” Knight said.

There is a group of administrators, master teachers and, as Knight calls them, “mentor teachers” that meet after school once a month with the school’s leadership team. The shadowing was optional for the staff involved with the team. Knight explained that as a school is developing a student’s perspective is needed to make a plan for development. Powell chose to shadow sophomore Mya Schuessler for a day. Powell said that the experience was beneficial because she was able to learn teaching strategies from other teachers.

“We as teachers go through our day and we really don’t think about what it’s like to be a student,” Powell said.

Schuessler explained that when she was being shadowed, Powell didn’t leave her side at all throughout the day. She also said that Powell’s Spanish 4 class is likable and that she wouldn’t do anything differently.