Three Anthony Wayne High School students from the Penta Career Center Teaching Professions program at Penta Career Center earned state recognition at the Educators Rising Competition, securing spots at the national conference in Orlando this June. The program, a partnership between Penta Career Center and Bowling Green State University, provides students with hands-on classroom experience and college credits.
Educators Rising is a career tech student organization similar to FCCLA, DECA or FFA, but is focused on education careers. And just like the other groups, students can choose from a variety of projects to present to judges at local, state and national conferences. Makayla Tucker, Roya Rahimi and Ben Reinhard recently traveled to Capital University to present their projects at the state level, returning with the opportunity to advance to the national level.
Makayla Tucker (Senior) – Gold, Interactive Bulletin Board - Elementary
Roya Rahimi (Junior) – Bronze, Interactive Bulletin Board - Middle School
Ben Reinhard (Senior) – Top 10, Exploring Administrative Careers
Roya Rahimi
Makayla designed an under-the-sea-themed bulletin board with activities to support math learning and practicing sight words for elementary students. Roya’s middle school-level board featured a Punnett square vocabulary activity. Ben shadowed a school administrator and presented insights on leadership roles in education.
All three students are excited about becoming educators. Makayla, inspired by her mother who is a teacher, hopes to teach early elementary students. Roya was influenced by her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Nicole Kemmer, and now shadows her at Whitehouse Primary as a part of the program. Ben, who comes from a family of educators, aspires to teach high school health and physical education before moving into administration.
They say the program has been helpful in solidifying their future plans and preparing them for working in the classroom. The coursework is rigorous, but the students agreed that putting in the work now will help
Ben Reinhard them when they are enrolled in college full-time.
“The class can be challenging, but we have created a group chat to help each other with the material,” Roya said “We are earning college credit now. It won’t necessarily reduce the length of time that we are in school, but it will definitely help lighten the load.”
The students shared that the classroom shadowing experience has been the most rewarding part of the Teaching Professions Program. Ben said the experience has helped him develop his own classroom management style.
Makayla Tucker“It’s an opportunity to shadow and explore different educational environments,” he said. “You can observe what they are doing, talk with them about the activities they do, learn from their style and take pieces of it to apply to how you want to teach.”
Makayla agreed that working with the students has been her favorite part of the program.
“We participate in classroom experiences every Thursday and Friday. I absolutely love it,” Makyla said. “I was with kindergarten students in Mrs. (Michelle) Nachtrab’s kindergarten class at Monclova Primary from the start of the year up until two weeks ago. I actually cried when I left them, and I look forward to going back.”