Many students don’t realize how many of their teachers went to the same school they are in now.
Elizabeth Gunn, a history teacher at NHS, graduated from Newton High School in 1997 and started teaching at NHS in 2007. When Gunn was a student, the high school had a completely different structure. The classrooms by Willis Gym were not there, and the front office was where the P.E. rooms are now.
“Mrs. Wedel’s room and Mr. Knoll’s room, that’s where the library was and you couldn’t cut through there,” Gunn said.
She believes that students’ attitudes have stayed the same between generations. Kids all want the same things. She says there were fights when she was in school, and while you may not see as many now, they’re definitely a common factor and still happen. One big change, Gunn said, is the internet.
“When I was a senior there was one computer that had the internet on it that you had to get parent permission [to use it], and everybody [questioned] why would we be on that? What is the internet? We didn’t really care, so I think kids, behaviors, and generations, I think it’s the same things that every kid is going through, but it depends on the technology and it depends on the hip or the hop,” Gunn said.
Gunn said technology has led to a change in teaching styles. Teachers now get different training than what she might have had. She also says it’s the willingness the teachers have to teach. Math teacher Erica Rickard was a year younger than Gunn in high school;
“Opposed to Mr. Fred Becker, but he’s been here forever,” Gunn said.
Rickard graduated in 1998 and started teaching in the fall of 2005. When Rickard was attending her last year of high school, they were talking about block scheduling.
“They started a similar kind of schedule when I graduated, so block scheduling is a pretty big change from an hour every day [with] the same classes,” Rickard said.
She said many policies are the same; for example, the dress code.
“Things change over time, but it’s a lot of the same things that we’re still talking about,” Rickard said.
She said the biggest change has been phones; it takes away attention and engagement in class.
“Nobody’s passing notes and handing them off anymore because they’re just sending messages all day long,” she said.
Rickard said teaching styles have had to change. The block schedule has created longer classes, making it difficult to stand up and teach for a full hour and a half.
“You can’t really do that for 85 minutes, or very well, so our teaching strategies have to be different,” Rickard said.
Rickard had no plan to teach, especially at NHS, her original degree was in journalism.
“I like that we have one high school in our town and so our whole community rallies around the high school and it’s not like that at some schools,” Rickard said.
Science teacher Frederick Schmidt graduated from NHS in 2000 and started teaching in 2017. When Schmidt was a junior, they were building Willis Gym. Kathy Wilson was the principal at the time.
“When I was in high school they had a line painted on the gym floor where the student section couldn’t cross. Students were getting too close to the court during games,” Schmidt said.
In the 2000s they had a pretty good basketball team.
“The girls were pretty good and the guys went to state one of the years I was there,” Schmidt said.
He said fewer kids are involved in activities and sports than when he was in school.
“The school wasn’t necessarily that much different in size, but on my freshman football team, we had 50 kids out for the football team and last year we had 25. Even band, we had probably 300 people and [they] also played sports and now it’s more cliquish, separated a little bit,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt has stayed here because he is a homebody. He’s been from Newton his whole life.
“It took me 13 years to get back here to Newton, I spent time at other schools in those years, and I’ve always wanted to [return] to Newton. I believe in building up the community and preparing students to do greater things than I can do and [it’s] an opportunity to give back to the city of Newton,” said Schmidt.