Northwood teachers Kari Haddy and Victoria Raymond spent five weeks in the Kenan Fellows program this summer, a program that helps empower teachers by putting them in real world partnerships.
The program is designed to send educators into a position outside of teaching, in hopes that the teacher will learn something that they can bring back to the classroom to help enhance their skills.
“They call it an externship,” Haddy said. “What the difference is [from that and an internship is] you’re actually leaving your full time job, and during the summer we go out and do something else in order to add more to your job.”
Haddy worked with the Department of Public Instruction, in the accountability department where EOGs, EOCs and the MSLs are developed. She invented her own project with the intention to help teachers get their voices heard.
“We sat down and talked, and thought, ‘How do we connect teachers closely to the people making the decisions?’ It’s about making teachers feel they can also be making the decisions,” Haddy said. “That helps students because we’re better informed about how to help you all in the classroom with tests and everything, and we feel like we’ve been a part of the decision making process.”
Raymond, a science teacher, spent most of her time in a micro-sequencing lab doing research on salmonella.
Raymond’s team worked specifically with salmonella bacteria in chickens, trying to minimize the contact of the bacteria with humans from poultry products.
“The idea is that you become a student. It puts teachers into real world situations: universities, labs or manufacturing. You figure out how to incorporate some of that [information into curriculum] and bring it back to the classroom,” Raymond said.
The Kenan program introduces teachers to many different ways to keep students interested in class.
“I think everything we’re doing has a direct impact on our students, and that’s why we’re doing it,” Haddy said. “We’re doing it because in the end we do want to make it different for [students] all the time. We want to always be changing and improving.”
– By Tyler White
