(Top) Jeanette Batista assists the Lower School art teacher Ms. Carden in printmaking. (Bottom) Omogbolahan Oladosu teaches probability to Mr. Charlesworth’s sixth grade class.
Fourteen seniors got a glimpse of the view from the other side of the desk as they participated in Senior Teach Day, the brainchild of PCS’s 12th grade Humanities teacher, Megan Thoma.
Senior Teach Day exposes students to the field of education by immersing them in a teacher’s life for a day. Besides benefiting the students and giving them career experience, it has the added potential to make an impact on the education field as a whole. In Rhode Island, less than 5% of teachers are people of color even though the state has 35% students of color, according to the May 9th Providence Journal article. Senior Teach Day is one way to increase the diversity of voice, experience, and talent in the field of education.
At the lower school, Jeanette Batista taught printmaking with the Lower School art teacher Ms. Carden while other seniors worked with K, 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th grades, and librarians and the principals of the Lower and Upper Schools. Each of the seniors found warmth, welcome and enthusiasm in their classrooms and the experience heightened their respect and appreciation for their high school teachers. Senior John Taveras who encountered a not-uncommon hiccup in a teacher’s day had to revise his entire lesson plan when some last minute information came his way. “I was up until 1:30 a.m. undoing quadratic equation examples! The one thing I will remember from this experience is the time it took to plan and create a lesson plan. I will always appreciate my teachers a lot more.”
Senior Participants: Infiniti Allen, Ivy Barclay, Jeanette Batista, Anabel Castillo, Margarita Gonzalez, Jimmy Hiraldo, Bryeshia Jennings, Charlee Jones, Jaylia Kuilan, Kehinde Oladosu, Omogbolahan Oladosu, Ernesto Peña, Africa Smith, and John Taveras.