Heavy Lifting

When you choose to come to Falmouth Academy, you are very likely seeking the kind of heavy lifting that builds academic muscle.  To stretch this metaphor a bit further though, one of the distinguishing features of our school is that even as you are pumping intellectual iron, you have at your disposal, any number of spotters, including caring and accessible teachers who know you, an academic advisor to serve as your wingman, and most importantly, a team of academic support specialists who work with individuals all day in a new space dedicated to this specific purpose.  In this post, hear more from Director of Academic Support Services, Ms. Helen Reuter on:

Academic support necessarily entails a variety of student needs and individualized

attention, although academic support at FA truly comes in all shapes and sizes. This myriad of support speaks not only to the wonderful diversity of our bright, hard-working, and engaged students and to the challenging coursework that our expert teachers provide, but also to the experienced, highly attuned, and themselves, diverse, group of Academic Support teachers, Mr. Miskell, Dr. Freelund, and me, Ms. Reuter. There are approximately 50 students who meet with one of us during their regularly scheduled tutoring sessions every 6-day cycle and another large handful of students who do not have regularly scheduled appointments but who stop by for extra help on a specific assignment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Academic Support Center is a very lively place. 

During any given period, Mr. Miskell might be working with a seventh-grader to solve word 

problems using proportions or helping a group of Algebra II students review the case of the 

ambiguous “Law of Sine” triangle. On the other side of the room, Dr. Freelund can often be

heard patiently guiding a student through a complex grammatical rule in German, French, or 

Spanish or helping a student layout the structure of an upcoming history or English paper. 

Adding to the resonance of this purposeful “chatter,” I might be introducing an eighth-grader to Excel graphing for his Science Fair project, helping a tenth grader discover more effective ways to study for his biology tests, making recommendations to a senior on what to cut from her lengthy Science Fair presentation, or brainstorming with a classroom teacher about how he could make assessments more equitable for the neurodiversity of our student body (and of the human population!). 

And although Mr. Miskell, Dr. Freelund, and I are as diverse in our training and

expertise as our students are in their age and academic challenges, the thread that knits us

together is our passion for teaching, a specific type of teaching that I equate more with

detective work than purveying content (although we do teach content and skills when

necessary). It is the collaborative work with each and every student to slowly uncover and then build up the “missing link” to his/her/their understanding and “doing” that makes all three of us tick and leaves us energized and enthused at the end of each day.