On October 8th, Dakota’s Teacher Cadets, a class that allows students to get a preview of what it is like to be a teacher, shadowed some of Dakota’s teachers. We interviewed a couple of them from around the school about what this challenging class involves.

The first question that we asked the Teacher Cadets was why they chose the class. They had a variety of answers. Anthony Barger explained how the positive influence from teachers made him want “to help other kids out.”  Both Katie Lancaster and Alyson Booth told how they’d always wanted to be a teacher and decided to take the opportunity to learn about it in high school. Kaitlin Gralka “was on the fence about being a teacher or social working,” so she ended up taking the class. 

We also asked them why they selected the teachers that they were shadowing. Kaitlin Gralka said that she shadowed Mrs. Comoford because “I want to go into special education, but I chose Mrs. Comoford because she is real with you about everything. She is telling me what people don’t tell you. I knew she’d be totally upfront with me.” Anthony Barger chose Mr. Nolan because “he is a great science teacher and is teaching one of my favorite subjects, earth science.” Katie Lancaster said that she chose Ms. LoPiccolo because “she’s my favorite teacher and I want to tech the subjects that she teaches, and I feel like I can learn a lot from her.” Alyson Booth chose Mrs. Caputo because “since having her, I grew a connection and knew I’d learn a lot from shadowing her.” 

The final question that we asked was what they would tell kids who wanted to do teacher cadet. All of them mentioned that it is not an easy class, and it is a lot of work. Alyson Booth added that it’s “not a blow-off class.” In addition to this, Katie Lancaster told that “it will be worth it in the end.” Kaitlin Gralka also added by saying that “Teacher Cadet is stressful. It’s more of a job than a class but hopefully once placement starts it becomes more of a passion. Right now, it’s paperwork and learning what a classroom is like.” Anthony Barger encouraged others to “go for it. It may be a decent amount of work, but you’ll really find out if it’s what you want to do for the rest of your life.”