The Buncombe County community is home growing something new - our teachers. Highschools across the county, with grants from the Buncombe County Schools Foundation, have created Future Teacher clubs to help grow the teachers of tomorrow from our student ranks.
Martin L. Nesbitt, Jr. Discovery Academy’s (NDA) Future Teachers club has created a special relationship with Joe P. Eblen Intermediate School to bring their students in for hands-on educational training. Charles Lanahan, club advisor and Social Studies teacher at NDA, says it is an important partnership that he hopes to continue as time goes on.
The Future Teachers club at NDA, is open to any student who is interested in going into any field where they may interact with school-aged children on a regular basis. They spent time several weeks ago watching the teachers at Eblen teach, and recently led a class activity of their own. The students were split into three groups, two of which entered science classrooms to bring the younger kids a Jeopardy style quiz lesson about weather patterns, and one group going down to the gym to help teach P.E.
“We went into the North Carolina standard course of study for fifth grade and found materials to branch off of,” said Mr. Lanahan. “We show the students what it’s like to teach. When you teach, what do you do? You go into the state standards and come up with creative ways to teach it. You do reading and research on your own and teach to those standards.”
Mr. Lanahan says he’s excited for the partnership with Eblen to grow. They expect students from the Future Teachers club to eventually lead several days of lessons at Eblen, getting into the nitty-gritty of teaching.