SNELLVILLE — Four days a week, South Gwinnett students leave their highschool for elementary and middle school classrooms. While they're stillonly students themselves, seniors in Randi Hill's careers in educationclass are getting a taste of teaching.
The students all enrolled in the class hoping to be future teachers.They're getting the full experience of being educators by beingclassroom assistants for schools in their clusters, helping withindividual tutoring, errands and even planning their own lessons.
Many Gwinnett high schools offer education classes, partially to battlethe teacher shortage affecting the growing school district. In the 12years since she started teaching the course, 70 percent of Hill'scareers in education alumni have become educators. She estimates morethan half of her former students returned to Gwinnett County to teach.
“I loved growing up in these schools, and it is a great honor to giveback to the community in which I grew up,” said Melinda Maney, afirst-grade Simonton Elementary teacher who was a student in Hill'sclass.
High schools in Gwinnett County all have chapters of the FutureEducators Association of Georgia, an extracurricular club for studentswho aspire to be educators. All of Hill's education students attendedthe FEA of Georgia annual Fall conference, which was held Tuesday atthe Gwinnett Center in Duluth.
“The purpose of these two, both club and class, is to help studentsdevelop their passion, whether it be for teaching or for other careers.We try to find them a career, not just a job. And it seems to beworking,” Hill said.
Students use the same textbooks as college education majors. Theintense curriculum of the class is part of the reason why Hillhand-picked all 23 of her students out of a pool of 50. They had tohave at least a “B” average, excellent attendance and no disciplinaryrecord to enroll. Hill had one-on-one interviews with each of theapplicants. Because there's such a great interest in the class, shehopes to expand the program in future years.
Senior Jessica Skeels always knew she wanted to be a teacher becauseher mother is an educator, and she loved helping her with her work. Butthe course helped solidify her career choice.
The students go to the elementary and middle schools during sixthperiod four times per week. For them, the best part is learning how toteach by actually working with kids.
Several alumni of the Careers in Education class returned to CentralGwinnett after college to pursue their teaching careers. That was thecase for Special Education paraprofessional Kellie Casey.
This is cache, read story here
