By Will Zimmerman
Volume 68, Issue IV

Everyone’s favorite teacher is the laid back one, right? During four years of high school, you’re bound to have at least one of these teachers; the kind who pushes back deadlines and doesn’t collect homework. With these teachers, learning is relaxed. That is until an administrator comes to watch.

The teacher makes sure you know an administrator is coming at least a week in advance, and from then on the air is sucked out of the room. Fast forward to the big date and when you arrive you hardly recognize the class. The room smells like candyland, the sun shines through the window, and maybe there’s even some faint welcome music in the background. The boring PowerPoint that accompanied you to this point is gone. In its place is a fancy Prezi or a game. And although your teacher’s out t is more vibrant than usual, he/ she won’t be teaching for long, because you’ll be doing IDE. If you’re really lucky, your class time will be filled with some sort of Socratic seminar unlike anything you have literally ever done in the past. Regardless of the lesson, the teacher preached engagement and promised some sort of reward if everyone participated well to help the lesson.

These visits are the few times of the year when someone will be watching your teacher as closely as he/she watches you. Relish them. There are even more great bene ts. First, you will likely see a cooler-than-normal presentation. Second, you will get to hear your teacher try and possibly fail to make jokes or witty comments (they appreciate when you laugh in front of the administrators and they need to make themselves look fun). Third, the only one stressed will be the person standing at the front of the class.

From my experience, our teachers handle these oft-overhyped situations well. Additionally, I observe most of us don’t appreciate the planning by teachers that goes into each lesson. When administrators come to watch, we get to see the best side of our teachers and it gives students a good opportunity to see just how much time and thought goes into lesson planning.