With December marking two months since the opening of the new Nochur Sankar Science building, teachers are beginning to settle into the modern classrooms and adjust their teaching methods. From interactive glass boards to state-of-the-art tissue culture hoods, many possibilities remain yet to be explored. Still, as with any major new building on campus, growing pains are inevitable for both teachers and students.
Even so, many teachers emphasize that these challenges do not overshadow the broadened range of conceivable course types, enabling students to explore more specialized interests and discover new passions, with plans to expand next year.
“I’m looking to do a biotechnology-related elective where we’ll spend a semester going through the skills, procedures and techniques of using biotechnology to do really cool stuff,” said biology teacher Bryan Moretz, who teaches classes in Sankar 118 and 206. “These are the types of things that you wouldn’t have the opportunity to do unless you had our tissue culture room and some of the more advanced things in the building itself.”
Additions to the new seminar rooms have streamlined teaching processes for language, math and history classes.
“I’ve got whiteboards all over the room and a projector that is perfect,” said Sebastiaan Blickman, assistant head of upper school and AP World History teacher. “I have a lecture stand (and) two desks next to each other, allowing students to easily pair up. It has made my class flow a little bit better, and there’s less transition time, which I think is really great.”
However, with the transition to the new building occurring in the middle of the semester, Science Department Chair Romina Jannotti said the department had to work hard to ensure that the move did not interfere with course content.
“All my teachers will tell you that it’s been a stressful month,” Jannotti said. “But the number one concern has been, ‘How do we do this so that the kids don’t notice?’ We don’t want to skip a beat. We haven’t stopped doing labs at all. Even though we were still working out of boxes and we couldn’t find stuff, we did everything in our power to make it so that it was just (like being) in a new building.”
Despite these efforts, challenges with scheduling logistics have emerged for teachers.
“My plans have shifted a little bit in that I have to plan better and be more prepared,” Moretz said. “I’m usually staying longer after school to make sure I have all the lab supplies where they need to be. I’m coming in earlier in the mornings to make sure that everything is set up and ready to go. I sometimes have to buy double the amount … I would normally buy just to make sure that I have it in both places if I’m splitting it up between periods.”
But the implications are two-fold, extending beyond teachers and affecting students as well. The shift in classroom locations has altered daily routines, creating new challenges in simply getting from one place to the next.
“I’ve seen an uptick in tardiness specifically to the math and sciences because it’s a longer walk and you can’t quite go to the Grille and also get there in time,” Blickman said. “And so I think that’s been a big adjustment for students.”
Compounding on the pressures for teachers is the loss of a personal, centralized space they can call their own.
“The faculty members don’t have a space, an area for them to put their stuff down, or they’re all working in the workroom,” Blickman said. “I think it’s a really great space for collaborative discussion and (to) work with one another … but I also know it’s a huge change from how it was before, where each teacher had their own room and their own desk. … I think that’s a big adjustment.”
While it is evident that the transition has presented its share of challenges for many, Moretz, along with other teachers, remains optimistic that teachers will be able to adapt to and overcome these obstacles with time and experience.
“You have to take a while to figure out how things work, and we’re all kind of figuring that out as we go,” Moretz said. “There’s always going to be challenges, especially when you first move in. But I would say by the start of next semester, we’ll have routines built in, clearer guidelines about how the building should run, and it’ll make things a lot easier.”
