Students get a head start on their teaching careers through the Future Educators Club, where they meet twice a month to explore the world of education. This club offers students a unique platform to explore their interests and gain hands-on experience.
English teacher Matthew Smith has been the FEA adviser for around ten years and has enjoyed talking about education with different students.
“[The class] is basically designed to give students an opportunity to get an inside look at what it is like to be in the education field,” Smith said, “not just being a teacher, but school counselors, administrators, any kind of case managers and special ed, and all that kind of stuff.”
Students get the chance to talk with current teachers and administrators about what it is actually like to work in the education field.
“The main goal [of this club] is to try to provide a comprehensive experience for these students, to not only talk about what education as a career is like, but to actually see it,” Smith said. “Get out into the field, so to speak, get into classrooms at the elementary level, middle school level, and even here at the high school.”
This club sets up different extended learning opportunities and internships for students during free periods and gets them with professionals in a field they want to pursue.
“We do a job shadow day over at Matthew Thorton where we pair kids up with teachers and they spend the day in the classroom with that teacher, doing everything from helping students with their math and spelling, or passing out papers, to even potentially teaching a mini lesson,” Smith said.
Senior Reya Rivera said the day they shadow another teacher “really just helped us see what the pros and cons are.”
“[It helped us] explore the different jobs in a school setting,” Rivera said. “It’s really giving us the experience before we’re actually thrown into the real world.”
Little Lancer Day was originally hosted by the Future Educators Club, where kindergarteners could take a field trip up to the high school for a day of fun.
“Its intention was giving students the opportunity to develop activities and have those interactions with the young kindergarten students and to gain that valuable experience,” Smith said.
The Future Educators Club is entirely student-driven, giving the students a chance to decide what fields they want to explore.
“Typically we do have that structure, that hierarchy,” Smith said. “But generally we are a pretty collaborative group, where I at least hope they all can speak to their concerns, no matter their role.”
Rivera explained how every student who walks into a Future Educators Club meeting, no matter how different, all have one thing in common: their love for the education field.
“We really are a very tight-knit club. We all understand each other and where we all wanna go in life.”