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The CANE Teacher Shadow Program

Many undergraduate Classics majors who are thinking about careers don't have a clear conception of what secondary school teaching actually involves: what do teachers DO? what does it mean to prepare a class? what's involved in writing and grading tests, let alone in designing a year's course? Although the students' college faculty can provide helpful insights, they may not be fully informed themselves, and they may be looking for a way to give their students a fuller sense of the demands and rewards of secondary school teaching.

The CANE Teacher Shadow Program can provide a simple link between undergraduates considering secondary school teaching as a career and one of CANE's richest resources: successful, committed secondary school teachers of Latin and classics.

In brief: the CANE Teacher Shadow Program will match up undergraduates interested in secondary school teaching in classics with teachers as close as possible to the student's location. The student will spend a day shadowing the teacher, learning about what teaching involves on a practical level and also about the passion that CANE's teachers bring to their work. The arrangements will be simple and voluntary for all concerned. The rewards to the teachers will be a letter of appreciation from CANE and the satisfaction of having helped a student who may one day be a colleague in CANE.

The details: This may well sound bureaucratic, but the Shadow Program is being run entirely by volunteers, so it needs to be as simple as possible. For that reason, all arrangements, from the initial contact on, will be handled by email.

(1) An interested student from the CANE area will contact the Shadow Program Coordinator, Ray Starr of the Department of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, via an electronic web-form (see the end of this page for the link)

(2) Drawing on the list of teachers who have volunteered to be shadowed, the Coordinator will contact via email an appropriate teacher, as close as possible to the student's location. The Coordinator will provide the information sent by the student. If the teacher agrees, the Coordinator will email the student with the name of the teacher and contact information.

(3) The student will then contact the teacher directly via email and make the arrangements for shadowing him or her for a day. The initiative here is entirely the student's: the teacher will not make the initial contact. The student will need to arrange transportation. The teacher will not be expected to house the student.

(4) During the day of the visit, the student will "shadow" the teacher, sitting in on classes and other activities as appropriate and, no doubt, talking informally about teaching.

If you're a teacher interested in volunteering to be on the list of those willing to be shadowed, please click here to go to an electronic form---and thanks! If you're a college student interested in shadowing a teacher, please click here to go to an electronic form that will gather the needed information.

The Shadow Program is an experiment, made possible by the generosity of teachers and the interest of students.