Teachers Have the Freedom to Design Their Classes

By Tatumherrin By Tatumherrin

A defining characteristic of Menlo is the individuality of its classes; not every high school has a Global Mythologies English elective and not every Advanced Placement Statistics class lets its students retake every quiz three times. Menlo students get access to these unique features because Menlo teachers take initiative and the faculty places trust in the teachers in return.

Senior English electives are constructed from the ground up by the teacher that teaches that class, allowing teachers to build courses that cater to their specific expertise and interests. As a result, English electives are constantly evolving as teachers with different specialties move through the school.

“We’re at a point where we’re going to have the opportunity for probably many more electives than we currently have,” English teacher Jay Bush said.

“So I think [English teachers] are all really excited about possibilities,” he said. According to Bush, creating a course is one of his favorite aspects of being an educator.

from the department.

Bush explains that the more unique classes are available, the more likely students will be able to find a topic that genuinely interests them. “There’s an extremely high value to student engagement, and students learn a lot more when they’re engaged in the course,” Bush said.

At his last school, the curriculum was more fixed, while at Menlo, the careful hiring process results in more trust in the teachers. “When I came in with my interest in modernist poetry, I think a lot of people would think that sounds really weird and niche. But when I said ‘Look, [...] I think I can get kids to really like this hard stuff,’ the school trusted that,” Bush said.

To Bush, this freedom is a defining characteristic of his experiences as a Menlo English teacher. “As a teacher, that kind of freedom is something that you really value because this creative part of the job is part of why most of us became teachers,” he said. through quizzes which they can retake up to three times. “I want the students to perform to a high standard. I really tried to calibrate the quizzes so that if you pass this quiz, you’re good enough in this topic to get a five on the AP exam,” he said.

Previously, Millstein allowed unlimited retakes. He recently switched to a maximum of three because he felt that allowing students three retakes still encourages them to continue their learning without also encouraging them to procrastinate and neglect studying for their first attempt.

But making several versions of every quiz can be difficult. “Probably the most challenging part of it is continuing to be able to create meaningful and fresh versions to assess the same body of knowledge,” Millstein said. He finds it worth the trouble, though. By allowing students to keep either recommend changes or approve it as a high school math that you can get a credit from,” Millstein explained. Millstein shares Bush’s opinion on Menlo’s flexibility. “As teachers here, our philosophy is to let students express themselves. [...] I think the administration has the same thoughts about teachers,” Millstein said.

-JayBush,Englishteacher

But that doesn’t mean teachers pursue just any arbitrary idea. First, the teacher generates a basic, overarching outline for the course and presents it to the department. If their idea is approved by the department, the teacher then fleshes out the course into units and builds the lesson plans. The finalized course name and description is shown to Upper School Director John Schafer.

Bush explains that, based on his experience, the first year of a brand new class comes with challenges. Over time, however, the course gains its footing, especially with constructive feedback provided by students and check-ins

Another freedom accessible to Menlo teachers is grading style. Math teacher Dennis Millstein in particular has taken advantage of this freedom for his Statistics classes. His grading system was inspired by Upper School Director John Schafer.

Schafer encourages teachers to allow “second bites of the apple,” in which students can retake assessments to get closer to mastery. “The point of a test is not simply to find that the student has 83% mastery and that is the end of it. The student should fix [and] learn from [their] errors,” Schafer wrote in an email to The Coat of Arms.

In Millstein’s model, students get “multiple bites of the apple.” Students are never assessed through tests; rather, Millstein assesses students taking the quizzes, Millstein encourages students to continue to fill the holes in their understanding.

Because Menlo is slowly moving away from APs, Millstein is preparing to reshape the AP Statistics class. Similar to Bush, Millstein is excited about this aspect of creation. Millstein also hopes to dive into practical application, particularly through Machine Learning and Data Science. Similar to the English department, however, Millstein will first present his ideas to his colleagues in the Math Department.

The curriculum undergoes an external check as well. “There’s a process for submitting the description of the class and having the description audited by representatives of the University of California system who