Have you ever wondered what your teachers were like when they were younger? Believe it or not, the faculty on the Choate campus were once high school students. And what if they still were? What courses and extracurriculars at Choate would they participate in? We asked.
Mr. Kyle Di Tieri, a science teacher and robotics coach, said, “I would definitely be in the robotics classes. In terms of the courses, in my high school, I ended up taking BC Calculus and higher level physics, so I’d do that too.”
HPRSS teacher Ms. Kyra Jenney also expressed interest in taking Choate’s courses in the Humanities department. Ms. Jenney went to boarding school and became interested in religion when she took an elective her senior year. She said, “When I look at the religion offerings that we have here that are open to third and fourth formers, those would’ve been exactly the type of courses I would’ve been interested in while in high school. A class like Peace and Justice would have really appealed to me. But even now, I teach Women’s Studies, and I think that is such an awesome course for students in high schools to be able to take, and even things that we offer here that most high schools don’t offer.”
Along with taking courses similar to what they teach, many teachers also mentioned that they would apply to the special programs that correlate with what they instruct. Choate offers several special programs such as Study Abroad, Science Research Program, Advanced Robotics Concentration (ARC), and the JFK Immersion Program. Mr. Di Tieri said, “I probably would have been so gung-ho about the ARC program that even if they were all my six classes. It would’ve been a lot of work, but I would have done that.”
Although the JFK Immersion Program is within the broad humanities choices at Choate, Ms. Jenney mentioned that she wouldn’t have been particularly interested in it. She said, “I’m starting to think that we need a more social justice oriented signature program, which would be really cool. That seems like something I would have totally done. I don’t know that the JFK program is necessarily my particular area of interest, but I think its cool that we are doing that.”
Mr. Andy Arcand, a teacher in the Humanities Department, wishes some of the experiences from programs such as working with a professional or an organization in the Science Research Program would be offered in other areas. He said, “A program that really interests me and a lot of students is SRP. I would love it if they offered the SRP experience across all the disciplines. That would probably be the one that interests me the most, even though I have the most ignorant, rudimentary understanding of science.”
At Choate, it is very easy to explore different areas within academics, the arts, and athletics. Many teachers mentioned that they did not feel like they had as much freedom to try new things at their schools. Ms. Yuxin Xie, a science teacher, said, “At Choate, I’d probably take some programming course because we didn’t really have that at my high school, and I always kind of regretted not being able to take a computer science course.” Ms. Xie, along with other teachers, said that she would definitely explore the arts electives, such as visual arts, weaving, ceramics, and acting.
Mrs. Julia Brown, a Spanish teacher and fourth form dean, mentioned that although she attended Choate, she still wishes she would have taken some other classes than the ones she did. She said, “I would take art history, because when I was a student we didn’t have it. I definitely would’ve taken psychology. I don’t know if we had psychology when I was a Choate student, but I would.”
Along with the choices of academic classes, Choate students can take a variety of extracurriculars. Ms. Kristin Chin, a math teacher, said, “When I was in high school, I played soccer, basketball, and softball. I would certainly try to do those here in my high school days.” Ms. Xie mentioned, “I would do anything that I felt was cool. So like all the stuff that is hard to do at a public high school like hockey, badminton, archery, fencing, crew — just everything.”
Many teachers, in fact, mentioned they didn’t know how well they would do here, or even if they would actually attend Choate for high school. Ms. Xie said, “I don’t think I had the maturity in high school to be living in a dorm not around my parents. I think if I had the maturity I had now, I would want to go to Choate.”
