"Be it continuing education on the way to achieving a required master's degree or just looking to better the classroom experience for their students, many Lexington Fayette County teachers spend their summers with the tables turned, using their vacation time to sit in classrooms as students.
More than a dozen teachers spent the last week of July talking with business leaders, touring local companies and learning from economists and fellow educators as a part of the Fast Forward Teacher Professional Development Series put on by the Lexington Partnership for Workforce Development.
Teachers got a dose of how to incorporate college-level economics terms into even first and second grade lessons, saw how other schools in the county were engaging withdrawn students and heard first-hand what employers are looking for in job candidates, even those right out of high school.
"College is not the only way to success, and I don't think I had seen that as clearly as I do now," said Winburn Middle School band and orchestra teacher Patti Stanton, who spent much of her week behind the lens of a video camera recording the presentations and tours to share with students and fellow teachers.
Rudy Schmidt, former owner of tool and die maker Crest Products, told teachers during their Monday luncheon that high school grads in just the first three years at Crest could be earning $80,000 to $100,000. Schmidt said there was too much of an emphasis put on earning a four-year degree when a trade or a two-year associated degree can pay great dividends in the professional world, as long as they come in with the right work ethic.
Teachers heard over and over from construction managers to plant owners to department heads at Alltech that going to work every day, arriving on time and being able to communicate with coworkers and bosses are the most important qualities in a successful employee, not the ability to regurgitate answers. Teachers were told something many of them already knew - the needs of today's businesses do not mesh with what students are required to know to pass mandatory tests.
"We're given standards and content that we teach," said Emily Harris, who took part in the morning sessions of the Fast Forward program through a UK class she is taking to earn her master's degree. "A good teacher is able to use the content and make it work for the kids, make it fit their life and make it a fun way of learning."
"As much as we drill assessment, assessment, assessment, it's not about the assessment - it's about the learning experience for the child. You want them to be successful... but (being successful) it's not about the regurgitation," Harris said.
To help illustrate meaningful lessons for students, Grace Evensen, who is entering her 42nd year of teaching, showed the teachers ways they can introduce economic concepts to the youngest of students using action figures to help them understand opportunity cost.
"The core content, a lot of times, will take care of itself if the kids are engaged and interested and what they're learning is relevant," said Pamela Trautner, executive director of the Lexington Partnership for Workforce Development.
Having second grade students choose which of a number of action figures they want is a great way to learn the tenets of economics, according to Evensen. Choosing a Superman figure over Spiderman or Robin means Spiderman and Robin are the opportunity cost.
"Something of what we've done could be applied to just about every (grade level)," eighth grade Tates Creek Middle School language arts teacher Becky Simpson said.
Beyond ways to show teachers how to incorporate economic lessons to classrooms, such as a commodity exchange simulation for students, teachers got to see first-hand what some of their students will be doing when they leave the confines of school.
"There's a world outside of their school buildings and outside of testing, which is the whole intent of the program. It is to open their eyes to the relevance of what business needs today and what opportunities are out there at all levels of education for the kids," Trautner said.
The types of jobs and companies that operate in Lexington came as a surprise to many of the teachers. "I've lived here all my life, and you think you know a city and you don't, until I've done this," Simpson said.
While Simpson said she and the other teachers were surprised to hear some of the post graduation opportunities that exist other than a four-year college, she said the business people also learned something from the educators about producing a motivated workforce.
"We work with at school what they come to us with from home," she said. "Home is still to me the most powerful influence over a child."
Trautner, who through her office with Commerce Lexington deals often with businesses, agrees.
"I don't think they truly understand what the educators face today," she said.
Steven Duerson, a social worker at Dunbar High School, took part in facets of the Fast Forward program for the second time. Duerson went through the program a few years ago and spent mornings with the program this summer through the UK class he was taking to enhance his after-school program, Leaders in the Making.
Most of the 55 students in his program are part of his normal caseload of 75 students that he helps guide through high school from the first day of freshman year until graduation. After touring Thiel Audio, a maker of high-end speakers, as a part of Fast Forward, he had Thiel's president come speak to his group about the hardships she had to endure growing up and rising to the top of a company.
"She not only talked about her business, she talked about her life story and how she got to the point where she was at. And looking at her, you never would have thought that she'd gone through some of the things that she did, and it was just like a lesson to the kids that you can't judge a book by its cover. A lot of times, people judge others based on what they see, but you don't really know their story, their real life story," which shows his students who've had a rough go of it that they are capable of anything, he said.
The program has changed drastically from when Duerson went through it. Until this summer, the program met monthly during the school year, requiring participants to be pulled out of their classrooms, which Trautner said may have prohibited some teachers from taking part and prevented others from giving it undivided attention.
Trautner said she hopes to expand the course to 45-50 participants as the program matures in its new format. When the group met during the school year, it accommodated around 20-25 teachers. The group will reconvene in the fall and spring to wrap up the course.