Students prepare for their leave of RHS as they head over to elementary schools to teach younger kids, getting to experience the joy of teaching.

The classroom is a bit noisy as kids ask questions and laugh during the day. The room fills the student teachers with joy as it gives them a sense of pride shaping the younger generation and leaving a impact on their lives.

Kelly Schakel is the teacher of the class, giving students lessons to help them be prepared for the teaching world.

“We spend first semester here every day. They learn about the history of education, about how to set up a classroom, classroom management strategies, working with students with special needs,”  Schakel  said.

“They do practice lessons. We bring in the students from Mr. (Jesse) Potes’s classroom in here and get to practice teaching them. And then, second semester is when they get to go out and start actually teaching,” Schakel said.

Of course, the main focus of the class is the students who are preparing for the teaching world, such as Samantha Kincade.

“The whole second half of the year was just getting experience in the classroom, working with a second-grade class in my case and just getting that field experience, which is really cool,” Kincade said.

As with every class, they are graded on a few things, and they work throughout the year on a few different things.

“Every Monday we meet here, we call that our seminar day and usually I give them an assignment that they’re working on throughout the week and usually it has to do with something at the elementary school,” Schakel said.

Students during the school year have normal assignments as well, such as a portfolio they compile together.

“The most challenging thing was just keeping track of all the different assignments. We did so much throughout the year, we compiled this big fat portfolio of all the stuff that we did and just keeping track of all of that we did was a little bit of a challenge,” Kincade said.

The students take this class for a variety of reasons with different goals in mind when it comes to after high school.

“I kind of already knew that I wanted to be a teacher beforehand and I thought that teaching careers would be a good way to try out and see if it would be something that I’d want to purse in college,” said Kincade.

Students and the teacher believe the class is a good way to see if they enjoy teaching enough to pursue it during college.

“I always tell kids, isn’t it better to figure out what you want to do when you’re in high school than go to four years of college to become a teacher and then get into a classroom and realize it’s not what you want to do,” Schakel said.

The goal of teaching kids is a hard one and it’s something the students strive for when they do the class.

“It’s the most rewarding job ever. In fact, every day that I go out to the schools and I sit and I watch…I get chills and I think like, wow, these kids are ready to teach right now,” Schakel said

Students have also agreed that they enjoy and find the class rewarding.

For those interesting in taking the class, its run by Shakel and during the second semester they go over to either Zeiger or Dessie Evans. It’s a good way to experience the role of a teacher, either the history or the environment behind it