By Ryan Kupperman, copy editor
As social science teachers Jay Heilman and Qiana Drye, english teacher Joyce Kim, and innovative technology facilitator Matt Hamilton spearhead Prospect’s Knights’ Way program for the second year, students and teachers will have more input in the content of the program.
According to Drye, Heilman, Kim, Hamilton and herself sent surveys out to all of the teachers and Knights’ Way leaders after each presentation during the 2017-18 school year. From that feedback, new topics were chosen to be more interactive with students. Drye says this year’s topics are kindness, wellness, courage and gratitude.
In addition to getting more feedback, as of this year any upperclassman can become a Knights’ Way leader, as opposed to previous years where students had to get recommended by teachers.
“Students had to show desire and initiative,” Drye said. “Then we had the faculty rank those students based off of their ability to be a strong leader, a good speaker and someone of good moral character in front of a class.”
Senior and Knights’ Way leader Kristina Hammerstrom enjoys the room for more student input as she hopes to decrease the amount of time spent on watching videos and increase the amount of time talking to the class.
“I know I see my students in the hall sometimes and they don’t really recognize me because we just stood there and pressed play on a video,” Hammerstrom said.
Despite this, Hammerstrom has good expectations for this year as she was allowed to pick her partner as well as the class she comes into teach. She also feels the new changes will allow for more future-based lessons, such as peer pressure, as well as more student interaction and enthusiasm.