Principles of Teaching

At Mercer County Senior High School, some students are becoming the teacher as part of the school’s Principles of Teaching class.
“I treat them as much like a teacher as I possibly can because I really, really want them to get even the smallest glimpse of what it’s really like,” said family consumer science teacher Miranda Goodlett, who has taught the class for about 10 years. 

Students can take the class as a junior or senior, and the class typically has 8-14 students. They learn how to do lesson plans, learn the importance of classroom management and create a student-teacher binder, among other assignments. Superintendent Dennis Davis gives students confidentiality and harassment training just like he does his teachers.

 

One day a week during the Principles of Teaching class, the students go to a classroom at the district’s elementary, intermediate or middle school to get a firsthand look at what a teacher does.

“It’s just a class to kind of prepare you to see, is this what I want to do?” Goodlett said. “We talk about a lot of things that are going to be difficult with teaching. They work with the students, they create lesson plans, they do pull-out readings, anything that they can do to help that teacher and to get a glimpse of what it’s really like to be an educator.”

The students also receive a mini student-teaching experience by doing three full days in the classroom with their mentor.

“Yes, in college you get all the fundamentals and the philosophies and all of those things, but you truly learn to be an educator in the classroom,” Goodlett said. 

Students who take the class as a junior can do an internship during their senior year and can receive three hours of elective credit through Morehead State University.

Students who do an internship find a teacher/mentor at the district’s elementary, intermediate or middle school for the year. They go to their mentor’s class for a portion of every school day.

Class is an eye-opener
Vickie Pendygraft, a second-grade teacher at Mercer County Elementary School who served as a mentor to Brevin Charles this past year, said the class should be mandatory for any high school student wanting to pursue a teaching degree because of the hands-on experience it provides.

“It’s more than just book knowledge. It’s interacting with kids and realizing that not all kids are the same – different backgrounds, different home lives, different levels of ability, and being able to adapt to all those levels,” Pendygraft said. “I think this program shows what teaching is all about – the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Charles said the experience helped him and he would recommend it to any school or student. “It’s definitely been an eye-opener because going into my future career as a teacher I can see different ways of classroom management,” he said. It’s also taught him how to plan a lesson and to build a relationship between the teacher and students.

Goodlett said she’s had students who were on the fence about teaching realize they want to pursue teaching and had some who were sure they wanted to be a teacher decide it wasn’t for them after the class.

“I’m not upset. You just realized and saved yourself four years, five years of work that you’re not really passionate for,” Goodlett said. “It really does give them, as close as I can give them, a look at what it’s like to be a teacher.”

Goodlett said the class also helps students decide what grade level they would want to teach.

Julia Weaber, who will be a senior this fall, said she’s always wanted to be a teacher, but after working with a kindergarten class she “slowly realized that wasn’t the fit for me and that I would much rather be with older students where I could teach agriculture education.”

Trinity Yeast, who will be a senior this fall, said she “would’ve wasted five years in college” had her experience in the class not shown her that she wanted to teach middle school instead of elementary.

“I know some kids that want to pursue the same thing I want to pursue, but they haven’t taken this class,” Yeast said. “They’re not going to understand what they’re getting into.”

Recruitment tool
Davis said the district started the class in part due to teacher shortages, hoping to grow their own. He said a former student who took the Principles of Teaching class will begin teaching in the district this fall.

 

“We’re just having to find more creative ways (to find teachers),” he said. “We’re can’t compete with Fayette County’s pay scale. It’s vital we keep trying to find ways to get top-quality teachers in our school district.”

Davis has also seen the benefit of the class as a parent. His daughter Emma took the class for two years and is now pursuing her teaching degree at the University of Tennessee-Martin.

“She is so far more prepared than I was coming out of school of knowing what a real school is like,” he said.