The Careers in Education class at VHS focuses on exploring senior students’ interest in becoming future educators.

Careers in Education is a small class taught by Mrs. Pam Burke who works with the students to help them figure out what aspects of teaching they like and if they are interested in making a career out of it.  She explained that this is only the first major project in the Careers in Education class. Mrs. Burke says that in future assignments the students will be “observing preschool classes and eventually every grade level.” During the second half of the year the seniors will be creating a teaching plan and at some point be student teaching in one of the elementary classes.

One of its recent assignments was to create a puppet show that would teach a lesson about self-esteem.  The puppet shows would then be performed for the first graders at F.N Brown Elementary School so they would be able to learn from it and understand the concept of self-esteem.

Two of the puppet shows performed to the first grade class were based off of characters that most first graders would recognize – Nemo and SpongeBob Square Pants.  The third show was about an average girl in a more relatable situation. The kids then took part in an activity created by the Careers in Education students, in which they wrote down the things that they were good at and the things that they weren’t so good at, and considered a plan for becoming better at certain things.

Ms. McKenna and Mrs. Collins, first grade teachers at F.N Brown, agreed that the seniors did a very good job teaching the kids what self esteem means and making it so that they would understand by using cartoon characters that they know.

From individual projects such as the puppet show to general education concepts, the VHS Careers in Education class continues to build next generation teachers- one puppet show at a time.