WSHS Teacher Cadet Program Prepares Students Beyond Teaching
WSHS Teacher Cadet Program Prepares Students Beyond Teaching
By Valerie Sliker, Content Director
Teacher cadets completed their classroom observations in November at Wagener-Salley High, A. L. Corbett Middle and Busbee Elementary schools. In the spring, students will choose which classroom to conduct their field experience. Upon completion of the course, they will receive three college credits. Teacher Cadet is for junior and seniors only and students must have at least a 3.5 grade-point average as well.
The teacher cadet program came out of Winthrop University and has spread to several more states.
Mrs. Stuart Crockett-Akins is the Family & Consumer Science and Teacher Cadet Instructor at Wagener-Salley High School. She only has three teacher cadets this year - Jacob McGee, Kaleb Shaw and Westin Williams - all of who remain undecided about teaching.
"The class isn't just for the teaching profession," Crockett-Akins said. "We work from the ground up, what teaching entails, but not just teaching, also on what the school board officer does, we go to a school board meeting, and the cadets will meet with principals to learn about their profession. We talk about how even if you don't go into education, how important education is and how to be vocal about education. The class is not just about teaching, it's also about what education stands for. This class is good if students want to be involved in town politics, want to be on the school board, or just want to advocate for their own kids. Even if students don't want to go into teaching, we want them to have a thinking knowledge about education and how to advocate for public education."
The classroom observations enable the cadets to see the range of education from K-12 before they select on for their field experience in January. The field experience consists of 25 days in the classroom for one period daily. Teacher cadets have to teach three lessons and write lesson plans to teach whatever grade level they choose.
Upon completing their classroom observations in all three schools, the boys began to favor the teaching profession. McGee prefers elementary and Williams prefers middle school.
After the boys observed a middle school class, Mrs. Hill-Davidson, A. L. Corbett principal, had nothing but good things to say about the program.
"It's been an extremely beneficial, outstanding program; I love the teacher cadets," she said. "I'm a former teacher cadet, my son and daughter were both teacher cadets. It was part of why I chose education and why I'm still in education today 20 something years later.
"Having the teacher cadets here has been beneficial for both our faculty and staff as well as the teacher cadets. I'm hoping to get more of the cadets to go into education. Anything we can do here to support Wagener-Salley High and to support education, we're willing to do that."
Article was posted in the Wagener Monthly, Wednesday, November 27, 2019, pg. 8