The school fosters many unique classrooms. The classrooms vary in arrangement and decoration, where some classes are decked out in posters and others are minimalistic.
In “teacher school,” as he called it, social studies teacher Michael Cummins learned that teachers should decorate their classrooms with items that reflect their personalities, he said.
“I think that that’s probably good advice because kids come in and they see something that you care about, that they also care about, and it suddenly gives you a connection,” Cummins said.
When it comes to organizing the classroom, most of the artwork and student work is placed around the top, French teacher Lisa Topping said.
“But I also have permanent posters that are handmade, like grammar,” Topping said. “I like to have those visible for everybody across the room.”
The idea of decorating classrooms is a very American concept, Topping added. However, she finds it very helpful and makes the classrooms interesting, she said.
In France, “the students usually stay in the same classroom all day, and the teachers rotate instead of the students rotating,” Topping said. “So they don’t really decorate so much. So that’s an interesting contrast.”
Some of the posters decorating his classroom are student work, while others he ordered, science teacher Charles Schletzbaum said.
“If you contact the Nobel Prize Committee, they’ll send you free posters for the Nobel Prize winners of your choice,” Schletzbaum said. “I got the physics and chemistry one.”
Schletzbaum also has a collection of hot sauces that are a part of his classroom’s decoration. Students sometimes come in and borrow them to use on their food, he said.
“Sometimes they have to run out and just spit stuff out because they overdo themselves, like trying this one or trying that one,” Schletzbaum said. “Some of them are more mild. Some of them are not. It’s like the hot sauces are also part of my decor.”
The newest addition to Cummins’ classroom is a pair of Obama socks, he said. He has it displayed near his whiteboard.
“I don’t know who brought those,” Cummins said. “I don’t think I’m expected to wear them, but I like to have them up there.”
Sometimes, things randomly appear inside his classroom, Schletzbaum said. It sometimes takes him a while to notice, he added.
“One of my TAs one time came in and he had swapped that (the US flag) with the Soviet flag,” Schletzbaum added. “He would periodically put it up there, just for fun.”
In Cummins’ classroom, there is a giant poster of the United States. The map gets used and referenced a lot in class, he said.
“That’s important for government class, and not just for elections, like all kinds of things that the country is based on,” Cummins said. “And it’s nice, I like to look at it.”
Topping’s classroom features many posters. She’s had many of them for over twenty years, Topping added.
“I’ve added those over the time,” Topping said. “You can tell when the ‘Incredibles’ came out, or when the ‘Lord of the Rings’ came out, or ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’.”
In the end, Madame Topping’s French three students have been in the classroom for three years, she said. They would be very familiar with the classroom by now, Topping added.
“They know these things by heart,” Topping said. “Some of these posters, maybe it’ll be ingrained in their brain for the rest of their life.”