Teacher to Community
Embodying Learning through Living, our faculty engages with students in and out of the classroom.
The role of the teacher in the Indian Springs School community is, indeed, a unique one. An Indian Springs faculty member is one who “knows and loves his or her academic discipline, has a keen understanding of young people and the learning process, and embraces the opportunities for growth that a boarding environment is particularly able to afford.”
In the spirit of Learning through Living, the Indian Springs faculty believes that some of our best interactions with students happen outside the classroom. We seek to model active participation in the community as we strive to help students reach their full stature. Indian Springs teachers are expected to interact with students outside the classroom on a regular basis, and countless opportunities for such interactions exist. Some of these are fairly formal, and all teachers living on campus will be expected to help organize and supervise various residential life activities, including running evening study hall, participation on a duty team, and participation in the Residential Life program.
In addition, faculty are expected to attend and participate in all town meetings, sponsor student clubs and activities, supervise service projects, and act as liaisons to the various commissionerships, student judiciary, and class representatives in the student government. We acknowledge these responsibilities as highly valuable opportunities for student-teacher interaction beyond the classroom. We also encourage faculty to attend an evening meal once a week (community dining) where boarding students, as well as on-campus day students, can engage in conversation with faculty and their families during an informal dinner.
Equally important to the teacher-student relationship are the less formal ways in which we interact, including attendance at student functions, knowing those students we may not teach, and taking the time and energy to let students know we are interested in them as individuals.
Back