Field experts complete teacher training through MSU program
A special graduation was held at Mississippi State University Friday morning, moving 80 vocational professionals one step closer to their teaching licenses.
The professionals graduated from the MSU Research and Curriculum Unit's New Teacher Induction program, which is designed to give professionals in fields ranging from engineering to criminal justice to culinary arts. The training lasts a year, and is a step toward the professionals receiving a teaching license. However, the professionals are allowed to teach while they are pursuing licensure. The program has been offered by the RCU for six years.
“I came from the Starkville Public Library as a teen librarian, and came into the role of law and public safety teacher,” said Heather Fair, who teaches at the Starkville Millsaps Career and Technology Center. I've never taught before, so this program at the RCU gave me a lot of tools that I can use in the classroom to be effective.”
Fair said she held a degree in criminal justice and wanted to get back into the field through teaching.
“For me, it's a chance to give back to my community,” Fair said.
Another graduate in the cohort, Patrice Artis, an IT teacher from Cleveland Career Development and Technology Center in Cleveland, Mississippi described her experience.
“It was very enlightening as a first-year teacher coming from the industry world,” Artis said. “It gave me a little insight. I've been in education for eight years, but on the administration side, and this taught me a lot about the classroom. It taught me more about classroom management and gave me more ideas for how to broaden kid's interests about subjects that I teach and how to draw the kids in to make them enjoy education more.”
Gulfport School District Director of Career/Technical Education David Fava served as the graduation's keynote speaker. In his address, he offered the class several words of wisdom, and advised them to stay close to their respective industries even as teachers.
“You as career-technical educators are tasked with not only providing all the instruction, providing skillsets for our kids, but you also have to go out to business and industry and cultivate relationships so that our kids can transition out into the world of work,” Fava said. “Sometimes that can be a daunting task. Who do I need to see? Who do I see? Sometimes I know who I need to see, but how do I communicate with them, and I'll tell you it is fearful sometimes to make the call to go see them, but it's something you've got to do."
Leanne Long, an assistant research professor at the RCU, gave more background on the reasons for the program. She emphasized the wealth of technical knowledge the teachers would be able to share with their students.
“As I tell them in training, their stories of the things they've done in industry cannot ever be taken away from them, and it can apply in their classroom for their students, because they need to tell their story, how they got the skills that they have and now they're being a teacher in the classroom,” Long said.