The Power of Shadowing a Student for a Full School Day

            In this Education Week interview by Evie Blad, Stanford University d.school network director Susie Wise talks up the Shadow a Student Challenge (www.shadowastudent.org), which encourages principals to spend a full day following a student through his or her entire routine – classes, lunch, even bus rides. Billed as “a one-day crash course in empathy,” this initiative will take place next week (February 29^th  to March 4^th) and connect participating school leaders via social media so they can share their insights.

            Wise has been a proponent of shadowing for some time, and believes its power lies in building deeper understanding of what it’s like to be a student in the principal’s school on a day-to-day basis. “It felt like it was a kind of interesting gateway for them in terms of shifting their mindset about their role as a leader,” says Wise.

            But how is this different from principals walking around their buildings and visiting classrooms? For starters, the principal is able to downshift from hyperactive administrator mode dealing with 47 things at once and really focus on how students experience their day. “One of the things you get to see is the space in between,” says Wise. “You see transitions and you see posture. Some of the leaders who’ve done it have been surprised with how passive the student’s day is, and how much sitting there is, how many transitions there are that don’t make much sense. You don’t see that when you’re looking at a master schedule and you’re in leader mode… To a person, [principals who have shadowed students] all had realizations, really different ones, that were very profound to them.”

            How should principals decide which student to shadow? Wise suggests asking, “Who are the groups of students in your school that you know the least about? What’s most important is what you might see and how will that connect with the questions you have about your school.”

            There’s one additional benefit to shadowing, she says. It sends a powerful message to students that someone in authority is taking the time to observe and notice with a view to making improvements in the school for their benefit.

“Principals Urged to ‘Shadow’ Students” – an interview with Susie Wise by Evie Blad in Education Week, February 17, 2016 (Vol. 35, #21, p. 6), www.edweek.org

From Marshall Memo 625