By Adriana Duarte ’27
An ongoing question at schools is, “Do students enjoy their classes?” The real question is “Do teachers enjoy their classes?” With this question in mind, I interviewed 2 Science teachers at DHS: Steve Wojtowicz and Jennifer Shea. With many questions being asked to both teachers, the most common pattern was it was too long and too difficult for students.
My first question to both Shea and Wojtowicz were, “What in DHS are you responsible for teaching?” Shea’s response was “Forensics, Anatomy, AP environmental and Honors Bio/Lab.” Wojtowicz’s response to the first question was, “Chemistry, Biology, and Freshman Integrated Earth and Physical Science.” Both Wojtowicz and Shea are responsible for teaching different subjects but they both firstly had a pattern of the fact that all the curriculums have too many units for the whole year, as well as too much information in each designated unit. When asked in depth about this topic, Science teacher Wojtowicz stated, “Definitely too long, there’s too much information to cover in one unit… A lot of the time we can’t finish the curriculum, we just go as far as we can.” Shea had similar views. She said, “Specifically, the Bio curriculum is 5 units that take a marking period each, the problem with that is that we only have 4 marking periods.” Ultimately this shows a pattern of issues with length within both teachers even when differentiating their subjects.
The Next pattern showed some differences that both teachers have within the students’ work ethic. When asked about this second stance during our interview, Wojtowicz had this to say about it: “ The hardest thing is probably getting the point across I think. A lot of times, they’re expecting you students to sort of figure stuff out on your own, but you have no background knowledge to even know where to start.” On the opposing side, Science teacher Shea, had a different view compared to Wojtowicz’s view. When Shea was asked what the most challenging thing was about the work ethic within the kids she responded, “The most challenging is the student ethic, and having them know they can complete the engagement and exploration activities that are assigned to them.”
She thought the students needed more independence within their work, but Wojtowicz thought differently. Majority of the patterns observed were agreed upon by both teachers. Lastly both teachers stated that the Science Curriculum information should always change because new things happen in scientific discoveries each year. After all the information gathered, the summary of all answers given is that teachers have both good and bad experiences in the classroom, just as students have as well. It is up to the teacher to regulate the classroom environment, and work with the information they have and information they are given.
The Raider Press 