The future teachers of the Chicagoland area, or perhaps even America, exist within the walls of Riverside-Brookfield High School.
That’s thanks to the Educators Rising Club that launched this school year, headed by Kendra Cagle, a family and consumer science teacher and division head for career and technology education.
It’s proving to be a rich experience for the students, who participated in the Education Pathway Team-based Challenge last month at Triton College. The challenge drew 15 schools and about 350 students.
In that competition, the team of seniors Emma Hlavaty, Ella Giampietro and Isabel Marrello took first place in Group B in the Elementary Education division by designing a lesson plan about the lifecycle of a butterfly.
That included an innovative way to catch the judges’ attention, which just may have sealed their victory: a group dance that explained the stages – egg, caterpillar and chrysalis, before the birth of the butterfly.
“These judges are seeing 15 or 20 students, so we needed something that would put us above them,” Giampietro said. “What can we do? We just demonstrated the activity. It was a gametime decision, we didn’t know if we were going to do it or not.”
They did, and left Cagle more than impressed.
“For the age level, it was appropriate,” she said. “I was shocked they were willing to do this in front of complete strangers. Sometimes you have to be a little bit of an entertainer to get students’ attention.”
Consider RB Principal Dr. Hector Freytas impressed as well.
“I am extremely proud of the three students who won the education-team-based challenge held at Triton in the elementary school division,” Freytas said. “Their lesson was voted the most viable and complete. Their success is due to their efforts in learning what it takes to be a good educator, applying those principles, and the support they receive from Mrs. Cagle.”
The other RB group, featuring junior Eleanor McCormick and sophomore Molly Curtin, took second in the Elementary Education division’s Group A. They focused on how and why plants grow, tailored toward first graders.
It was a true one-two punch, so to speak, which bodes well for their future students.
But it all ties back to the Educators Rising, which is a nationally affiliated program, Cagle said.
“We have a teacher shortage in the U.S., so we have students who want to do it,” she said. “Why not start this program?”
Curtin, who wants to study special education or possibly science education in college, loves it.
“I’ve learned both the structure of teaching and the daily life of how a teacher goes about their day and how they are inspiring the next generation of students,” she said, adding she wants to teach because she was heavily influenced by her sixth-grade science teacher at Hauser Junior High.
McCormick said she wants to study elementary education in college, though where is TBD.
“I like elementary education because I get to be in one classroom all day,” she said. “It seems more hands on and ever-changing compared to other jobs.”
The three winning seniors have well-defined goals, seeing as a year from now, they will be finishing their first freshman semesters in college.
Hlavaty is going to major in elementary and special education at the University of Nebraska.
“My stepmom is a kindergarten teacher,” she said of her reasoning for going the education route, which also coincides with her work every day after school at a daycare. “I’ve always wanted to be with little kids and helping them.”
Marrello will be off to Northern Arizona University, because she has family in Flagstaff. She’ll study secondary education with a focus on social sciences.
“All the way back to first grade, I wanted to be a teacher,” she said.
As for Giampietro, she hasn’t quite decided on a college yet, but wherever that is, she’ll major in family and consumer science. She’s was inspired to teach by her fourth-grade teacher at Brook Park Elementary School.
“When I got to high school, I discovered that you can teach stuff like human development, child development, fashion design, the kind of fun classes,” she said.