Special to the Herald

Editor’s note: This story is part of an occasional series highlighting senior interns in Cranston Public Schools.

Many students need to wait until their higher education career to get some clinical time in their fields, but here in Cranston, public school students have many opportunities to get a taste of their possible career pathways before they even enter college.

Cranston High School West senior Zac Wilkinson has wanted to be a teacher for as long as he can remember. Thanks to a work-based learning opportunity through his Cranston Area Career & Technical Center Education Pathways program, he has been able to get a close-up look at the field – and now he knows he wants to pursue it even more.

“Both my grandparents were teachers,” he said. “My grandmother taught English Language Arts and my grandfather taught special education.”

For many, like Wilkinson, an internship solidifies that their choice was the right one. For others, it is a chance to change their minds at no cost and without affecting their college class schedule.

“As part of my Education Pathways program at Career and Tech, I had to do an internship program during my senior year,” Wilkinson said. “I emailed several social studies teachers at Park View Middle School, since social studies is what I thought I would like to teach, and Lloyd Bochner, an eighth-grade social studies teacher, wrote back and said I could intern with him. I have been going every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon since mid-September and working in his classroom with him.”

The new block schedule that Cranston started last year in the high schools has helped more students set time aside for work-based learning opportunities. The internship falls during Wilkinson’s Education Pathways block in his high school schedule, so he isn’t missing out on anything while he is at Park View.

It’s only October, and Wilkinson has already learned a lot during his time at the middle school.

“I’ve done a lot of observing and I like to see how much [Bochner] engages the kids,” he said. “I learn from him how I can engage kids someday, too, and I want to be able to use some of the strategies that he is teaching me now when I have my own class in the future.”

Although he has spent much of his time observing at the start of his internship, Wilkinson noted that he recently had the opportunity to plan a review session for the students in Bochner’s class for a test they would be having on the Declaration of Independence.

“I helped them to review for a chapter test, and I thought it went really well,” he said. “I was very proud of it.”

Bochner believes that the experience that Wilkinson is getting before moving on to the college level is valuable.

“It’s definitely a new experience having high school students doing a practicum compared to college students, but I think it’s great for these kids to gain some experience and see if this is what they really want to do for a career before they invest two or three years at the college level,” he said. “Zac has already run a test review game for one class, and I try to make him feel involved, whether through class discussions or asking for his thoughts on a subject so he feels good, too. My hope is he gets involved with some group projects that we are starting next week. He’s shown a comfort level jumping in and giving tips. Eventually, I’d like to see him teach a small part of a class, then see if we can progress to a whole class.”

Wilkinson knows he is lucky to have such an opportunity at the high school level, and he has heard from student guest speakers who come back to the Education Pathways classes to share their own post-high school experiences, that he will be ahead of his peers when he reaches the college level, in terms of his work-based learning experiences.

“This year is also not our first time interning,” he said. “Last year we spent the year rotating through positions with much younger children and in special education programs. I learned all of my lesson planning principles through those internships, and I can see how some of the planning is the same even though it’s with very different age groups.”

Wilkinson will be pursuing his career interests in secondary education as he moves forward in his post-secondary journey and will be able to take his work-based experiences with him when he goes. 1

REAL EXPERIENCE:

Zac Wilkinson is a Cranston High School West senior interning in an eighth-grade social studies classroom at Park View Middle School. He is helping Lloyd Bochner, an educator at the school, with his day-to-day lessons and activities. (Courtesy of Cranston Public Schools/Jen Cowart)