Teacher teams for seventh graders
Samantha Stephanson, Daniel Beaven, and Nicole Pennekamp all teach as part of a team. Stephanson teaches English, Beaven teaches Latin, and Pennekamp teaches social studies.
Walking into the giant halls of WHHS, squeezing through the crowd of people in the halls and finding your way to your class for the first time can be overwhelming for any incoming seventh grader.
WHHS’ attempt as a school to help the newest, biggest addition to each school year is to give them three of the same teachers: English, History, and Latin. This system set in place can help new seventh graders with more than just academic support.
Brooklyn Evans, ‘25, loved the way the teams were set up. “You get to make friends in all your classes so you know how to work with them and talk things out and study together,” Evans said. Evans would not continue the system onto eighth grade because she believes that it would assist people in making new friends if they did not have the barrier of the same people in each class.
But with the opinions of past students who have had experience with the system already, students who are experiencing teams in the present have different views on the matter. Seventh graders such as Romy Richards, ‘25, would like to continue the program onto eighth grade. “It’s a lot of activities that the whole team does and they are very organized,” Richards said. Richards thinks that everything is set up very well and she would not change a thing about them.
Students are not the only people involved in the teams. Teachers such as Samantha Stephanson are who make the whole system come together. This is Stephanson’s second year participating in the teams and has loved them since day one. “Some students will tell other teachers information that they do not tell you and we can communicate with each other… that makes my job a lot easier because not only do I teach and discipline students when necessary but my team helps me do that,” Stephenson said.
Stephanson sees honors as an eighth grade teacher team system but thinks that continuing teams onto future grades would be interesting to see.
Overall, teacher teaming is not only a great way to help students make new friends but also a great system of communication for teachers and students.
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