I am not normally a blogger. I don’t generally read them and I don’t write them. I am not sure how these things should go, so I am just going to jump right into it.
One thing about graduating last year and planning this year was that I wanted to give this year’s class members a different experience than I had. Not that I had a bad experience or that I did not enjoy the Education Day that we did as the class of 2018. I just wanted it to be different. One of the great things about being a planner is that I get to essentially have a second go at any day I am a planner for. I got to attend the day that was planned for us and I get to plan a day for the new class. This is a chance to double the potential experiences that I had in this program. To those ends, the Education Day I planned had at least one new experience for everyone, our visit to the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) and one experience that we did not do while I was a participant, the visit and tour of Hollenstein Career and Technology Center (HCTC). I also have to admit that I sort of hijacked the planning of the day. I had a pretty set idea of what I thought would be good and ran with it. I have to thank the other planners for letting me run away with the planning (I also want to thank Tootie for setting up and driving the van and Ellen for setting up our tour at the HCTC as well as taking care of our lunch).
So how did the day pan out? Where did we go? Who did we meet? And most important, why?
We went to three different places: The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), the Hollenstein Career and Technology Center (HCTC), and the Fire Service Training Center on the Northwest Campus of Tarrant County College (FSTC – TCC NW). I selected these three places for specific reasons. I wanted the class participants to see the various levels of education happening in Tarrant County. From pre-school to career and technical school to post-secondary school – there are people making this happen.
I selected the BRIT so the class could look at ways in which the community is educating very young kids, age 3 preschoolers, in science. Allowing 3 year olds into pre-school was a new thing for Fort Worth ISD, and is something that will be coming to other ISDs in the future, if it hasn’t arrived already. Our time at the BRIT allowed us to see how their programs both instruct children on science and how they help prepare pre-school teachers to do this same instruction at their home campuses. We also got to explore the facility, which was very cool.
From the BRIT we went to the HCTC. This was an excellent opportunity to see what is happening at the high-school level to serve students interested in professional trades as well as to prepare them for advanced technical programs in college. Our visit to the HCTC included a comprehensive tour of the building and description of the various programs housed on campus. The center showed us that for those who do not wish to pursue a college education, there are viable, potentially lucrative career prep educational opportunities available. The center also offers high level courses and programs available for those who wish to pursue advanced college degrees.
Our day concluded at the FSTC on the Northwest Campus of Tarrant County College. Here we got to see how the firefighters of tomorrow are trained – as well as how those who are currently in firefighting stay up to speed on the latest technology and professional development. We also got to see the cool training ground those who attend classes or training get to work on. These are the folks who are willing to run into a burning building on our behalf, it was cool to see where these folks go to train for what they do.
From pre-school for 3 year olds to the continued development of seasoned professional firefighters to teenagers thinking about how they might want to make their living, Education Day had it covered.
Thanks to TCC – CIE for breakfast. Thanks to Ellen Hollenstein for lunch. Thanks to the Walsh Library on TCC Northwest for the snacks. Thanks to Tootie Hall for the van.
I can’t imagine that anyone has read this far down into this blog post, so I will stop.