Switching Teachers Explored
Blane Zhu is a new lower in Ewald Hall from Beijing, China. Like other new students, after 10 weeks at the Academy, Zhu is adjusting to the Exeter curriculum and Harkness education, connecting with teachers and students and making this place a home. However, one thing still daunts him—the prospect of adjusting to class with completely different sets of teachers and peers, after bonding and learning with his previous fall term classes.
“For students, especially for new students like me, who just moved into a new environment, having to switch teachers after just one term can maybe feel…intimidating,” Zhu said. With the exception of the science department, which tries to link the winter and spring terms of year-long course sequences, all other departments offer term-long electives, taught by a host of different teachers.
Most classes at Exeter are not linked from term to term because the curriculum is structured around term-long electives, rather than year-long courses. Even in Exeter’s math program, typically standardized at other institutions, students are offered great flexibility with both transition courses and advanced post-AP electives, such as linear algebra or specialized science and history research electives.
“We have great flexibility with placement. After fall term transition courses students can be placed onto entirely different tracks,” Mathematics Instructor Timothy Whittemore said.
The science department also affords adaptability when students and faculty build and change their course schedules from term to term. “For biology, we have more electives than we do whole-year courses,” Biology Instructor and Interim Science Department Chair Christopher Matlack said. “It’s logistically impossible to have teachers linked for the whole year because they’re teaching these other electives aside from intro biology and also coach sports.”
In addition to being logistically challenging, linking classes poses other problems. Whittemore is not overly fond of linking because it may leave students with teachers with whom they do not have chemistry. “We have 25 [instructors in the math department]. Because [we do not link], and due to the large number of teachers, if a student does not like a teacher, it is mostly possible to request not ever having them again,” he said.
Noel Grisanti, a teaching intern in the classics department, believes that not linking students with teachers comes with many social benefits: “It allows teachers to meet many more students than they would if they had the same class all year long,” she said. “Furthermore, it provides a more interesting variety of courses for teachers to teach; you’re not required to teach only one level for the entire year.”
Physics Instructor Scott Saltman shared a similar sentiment. “While I do think it’s important to have continuity and to develop relationships, I also do see a value in having students get different perspectives at some points in an entire year course,” he said.
There are some members of the community, however, who’d rather continue with the same classes. “I feel like I’d prefer to be linked to one teacher in science; it’s hard to get used to different teaching styles and test formats,” lower Patty Fitzgerald said.
Lower Grace Ferguson agreed. “In science, different teachers do different things, so it’s much harder to adjust if classes are switched, but in math everyone is figuring out the problems together using the same material, so it doesn’t matter as much,” she said.
A large number of teachers also expressed a marked preference for linking courses. “I personally would rather have students for an entire year,” Math Instructor Dale Braile said. “It’s better to have contact with fewer students but for a longer time.” She also added that it takes time to “develop an understanding of how certain students learn the best.”
Science instructor Townley Chisholm said that at all his previous schools, the same teacher worked with students all year, and he preferred their system of “stability.”
Exeter’s winter-spring term linkage is actually a product of past circumstances. The fall term, which had once been almost half the length of the year, was much longer than the winter and spring terms. Chisholm, who has been at Exeter for over three decades, said, “The winter-spring linkage was an attempt to let teachers and students get to know each other better than they can do in a short 10 week term.”
According to the Director of Student Information and Registrar Sarah Herrick, students may de-link from teachers by submitting a request that must be reviewed and approved by the department chair and are accommodated only if the schedule permits. However, according to Matlack, there have been instances when the scheduler was not able to link the appropriate science terms, because all instructors were teaching multiple electives.
Though there are some difficulties in the way, Saltman said that most students are scheduled with the same teacher for at least two terms to ensure well-informed teacher recommendations during their college application process. Drawing on his own experience, Chisholm said, “The longer I work with students, the better I know them and the more authentic a recommendation I can write. That difference has to be apparent to readers of those recommendations.”
Despite the drawbacks to term-long courses, it is unlikely that this system will change anytime soon. According to Matlack, the only way having teachers linked for three terms would be cancelling all the different electives. “If we took away all of this course diversity though, Exeter would not be the same place,” he said. Matlack compared the way the Academy operated with that of colleges. “In college, you don’t have any year-long classes at all; it’s all term-by-term,” he explained.
In addition, if linked classes were to be enacted, sports practices would have to be reduced to one block to expand students’ scheduling possibilities.
“Slotting six courses into eight periods for 1,000 students is quite a feat already,” Herrick said. “To do it without conflict is nearly impossible, particularly given the number of competing pressures on the schedule.”
Some students resolve the issue of not having enough time with preferred teachers by deliberately choosing the electives that they teach. “Some seniors take electives that they know their prep/lower teachers or coaches are teaching,” Matlack said. “Then, when they need the college recommendations they can obtain it from these teachers who have known them for longer periods of time and also in different settings.”
Teachers can also request to read notecards from students’ previous teachers before giving recommendations. “I view the department cards containing students’ midterm and final grades alongside teachers’ comments on them,” said Whittemore.
According to senior Claire Melvin, the College Counselling Office also allowed for some flexibility in terms of from whom obtain recommendations. Melvin needed a recommendation after only four weeks with her spring term math teacher and felt the teacher did not know her as well as her previous teacher, who had taught both Melvin’s fall and winter term transition courses.
“I asked my college counsellor who I should reach out to. She told me to check with my new teacher, who said I could ask my older teacher if I felt more comfortable,” Melvin said. As a new upper, Melvin did not mind having her teachers switched each term; she enjoyed getting to know as many Exeter faculties as possible in a short amount of time.
Though he did not wholly object to the current system, Zhu would like to see students being able to request to have preferred teachers again. “It would be helpful if students could choose to keep the same teacher for an extended term or two,” he said.