High school and middle school students in Baldwin teamed up in a one-of-a-kind program on Thursday, gifting lessons in financial literacy at Plaza Elementary School.
A total of 103 students from Baldwin High School’s Education Academy, along with 12 eighth-grade students from Baldwin Middle School’s Education Pre-Academy, stepped into the role of teacher for a day.
The students delivered complete lessons on financial literacy, and for the first time, the curriculum they taught was created entirely by Baldwin School District teachers, tailored for elementary school classrooms.
“Our students, as teachers, are not lecturing,” Deirdre McManus, a Baldwin High School English teacher and School2Career coach, said. “They’re introducing concepts, talking to the kids and then having hands-on activities.”
The aim is to encourage students to consider teaching as a future career, and provide them with various career-focused opportunities.
The secondary students’ lessons zeroed in on topics that the elementary school students would not normally learn in the classroom, such as the differences between wants and needs.
Ryan Rios, a 17-year-old high school senior, has participated in the program since he was a freshman.
“It’s always been such a nice experience,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for three years now, and it’s always very wholesome, and very sweet, to see all of the kids ... It’s a unique experience.”
Gabriella Franza, the school district’s assistant director of instructional programs, agreed that the peer-to-peer instruction is important for the students to undertake.
“We’ve had a lot of students do research on the importance of peer-to-peer education,” Franza said. “The studies show that it is definitely a significant way to get students interested (in what they are learning).”
Through the program, school district officials expressed hopes of instilling in their students the idea that teachers are important and that they matter.
“I hope students take away that there is more to teaching than what they see,” Al Nardone, a Baldwin High School English teacher, said. “It’s not an independent profession. It’s very collaborative, and I hope more of them go into teaching.”
The latest version of the program was formed between early September and November, when the district began sending the secondary students into the elementary schools starting with Steele Elementary School, right before Thanksgiving.
Baldwin UFSD is committed to ensuring all of its students have an opportunity to graduate “future ready.” The School2Career program provides hands-on experience for aspiring educators, allowing them to apply their training in a real classroom setting, while fostering mentorship and community connection. This innovative hand-on learning experience not only empowered the students at Plaza with essential life skills, but it also gave Baldwin’s future educators an impactful, real-world teaching experience that brought their career dreams to life.
